


Time Makes You Bolder (Ineffably Yours Part III)

by SecondHandNews



Series: Ineffably Yours [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn, Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst Throughout, Barnaby is fine, Celestial Biscuit Club, Crowley’s Plants (Good Omens), Dark, Domestic Fluff, Doomsday, Drama, End of the World, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Heaven, Hell, Humour, Ineffable Idiots, Love, M/M, Rapture, Slice of Life, Soulmates, The really big one, chosen family, ineffable husbands, tribulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 129,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22032100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondHandNews/pseuds/SecondHandNews
Summary: *** Part Four (The Final Part) Publishing 11/2020 ****** Part Three Complete 30/9/2020 ***Since the day the rapture came to Earth and an angel and a demon burned in the cleansing fire, two celestial soulmates have been hiding away from heaven and hell’s watchful gaze. As the last great battle approaches, it’s time for them to step into the light and fight for their better world.The end is nigh.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffably Yours [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1394677
Comments: 773
Kudos: 122





	1. Is That You?

**Heaven.**

Raphael sighed. They considered disguising the sound as a cough, realised a moment later that it didn’t much matter. Quiet Raphael, meek Raphael, safe, soft, compliant Raphael. Not a single archangel in the room had even heard them make a sound. They looked away from Gabriel and took to staring out of the window. It was raining. It seemed as though it was always raining now, as though, perhaps, it always had been.

 _When was the last time the heavens were filled with sunshine?_ Raphael pondered the thought, surprised that they couldn’t recall a day since the tribulation began that hadn’t been blighted with celestial rain.

As Gabriel staggered to and fro across the front of the room, he ranted about the end times, about judgement, about every being within heaven’s walls standing up to be counted. Raphael caught the archangel in their periphery, arcing back and forth like a great swinging pendulum of a clock that was counting down to nothing but the end of everything. The other archangels, the only rank still permitted to stand within _Lord_ Gabriel’s presence, watched him with expressions that ranged from outright devotion to morbid curiosity.

 _Does he know_ , Raphael wondered, _that he is leading them into a slaughter? Us. That he is leading us into a slaughter? Is his faith so blind that he believes he can stand against hell and triumph?_ The quiet archangel looked back at Gabriel, saw the brackets of saliva gathered at the corner of his lips, the deep, cracked folds in his forehead as he furrowed his brow and spoke of serving the Almighty in the final battle between heaven and hell, of standing together as one in the face of evil. _Yes_ , Raphael realised bitterly, _of course he does. Of course he thinks this is what She wants_.

 _There is another way,_ they thought, felt that chilling prickle of dread tiptoe across the nape of their neck as soon as the words formed in their mind. Or was it something other than dread? Was it a memory? Yes. A memory of the last time they’d heard those words spoken aloud, a memory of the last time celestial rain had poured so freely throughout the heavens, a memory of a defiant figure, golden-haired, standing as proudly rebellious as they ever had while Gabriel had hissed every threat in his arsenal to try and eke out even a glimmer of fear.

 _He never did, did he? You never gave him the satisfaction, my love_. Raphael swallowed, teeth bearing down on the inside of their cheek as the memory of that day, the worst day of all, faded away, leaving nothing but a scar in its wake. _You never stopped believing in a better world, my Morningstar. And neither did I._

***

 **March. Crowley’s Garden, London.** ****

It was a rainy spring afternoon when an angel and a demon woke up in paradise. As close to paradise as they were likely to find in South London, at least.

 _You’re here_ , Crowley thought, gazing at his angel, finding a hundred memories and a thousand promises in those blue eyes, finding only beauty and tenderness in that sweet face, the face he had spent six thousand years chasing around the world and then, at last, beyond it. _You’re here, angel, we’re here. At last. We’re back, we’re us again._

“Angel,” the demon murmured, voice soft with longing as he reached out one hand, speaking the words again, as if he couldn’t believe it might be true until he heard it confirmed from the source himself. “Angel, is that you?”

As gentle raindrops plopped down between the soft white blond curls atop his angelic head, Aziraphale’s expression turned from relief to rage, conjuring up all the thunderous anger of a thousand heavenly storms.

“What?” Crowley asked, taking a step back and jumping at the sound of a twig snapping beneath his foot. A thrum of panic swelled in his throat and suddenly he was filled with the mounting horror that perhaps this wasn’t his angel at all, perhaps it was a surprise interloper who had crept quietly across from the old world, perhaps it was…

“ _Is that you?!_ ” Aziraphale mimicked, fists pressed to his hips as he sing-songed Crowley’s words back to him.

In the same breath, the demon uttered a sigh of relief. It was, in fact, his angel standing there, just an inexplicably irritated iteration of him. It had been six thousand years and he was more than used to Aziraphale’s baffling huffs, which were far more common than his own extremely rare, always logical fits of demonic rage. At least, _he_ was sure they were always logical. Before he had a chance to ruminate on his own lack of emotional restraint, Aziraphale spoke again, his voice rising in pitch with every sentence, cheeks growing pinker and more adorably cherubic with every barbed question.

“I can’t believe you even had to ask! Who else would it be? What sort of a welcome is that anyway? We’re finally together, _properly_ this time, and you can’t even tell if it’s me? Oh, what’s that look for? Disappointed you don’t get another go with Agent Angel Face? I can disappear again if you’d prefer, my dear, I’ll let him know you want another spell of lip locking, shall I? I _knew_ you enjoyed that more than you…”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s voice brimmed over with weary amusement, coupled with a hefty dose of millennia-old adoration.

“What?” Aziraphale wheeled around, further irritated that his monologue had been cut short, just as he’d been getting to his best lines.

The demon stepped closer to him, taking both of the angel’s hands in his own. He smiled. “Please stop speaking so I can kiss you.”

To Crowley’s surprise, Aziraphale did just that. There, in the garden that a snake from the pits of hell created from nothing but love and the desperation to do good one final time, an angel and a demon kissed as the rain fell and the sun shone as brightly and beautifully as she ever had.

“I can’t believe this needs to be said.” Crowley broke away from the angel for a moment, laughing against his lips as he pressed his forehead to Aziraphale’s. “But it’s only ever been you, of course it has, you idiot.”

“Your idiot.” The angel smiled, jutted his chin up to fill the distance between them as he closed his eyes, pressing his lips to Crowley’s and feeling a great aching sigh tremble through his body. _At last, at last, the thing that matters at the end of it all. Crowley, the only thing that has ever truly mattered._

“Excuse me. Hey, excuse me!”

A low rumble of frustration snarled out from Crowley’s throat as he pulled back from Aziraphale, looking over the angel’s shoulder to find a man stalking towards them, one index finger extended like a weapon as he waggled it in their direction.

“Might I remind you this is a family park? Kindly keep your hands to yourselves, pawing all over each other like it’s a bloody…carnival.”

On instinct, Aziraphale let his hands fall away from Crowley’s waist, took a step back and turned to smile politely at the man, opening his mouth to fire back a passive apology. Before he had a chance, though, Crowley took a pace forward, expression darkening as he flung a hand out to gesture at the beauty of their surroundings, at the sun shining down on them, at the rain that fell in fat droplets, bursting against the ground like ripe fruit. Finally, he jabbed a thumb towards Aziraphale, fixing the man with a look that was, unmistakably, a challenge.

“Oi, mate, show a bit of respect. You’re literally in the presence of your creator. Look at him, look at that face. Aziraphale the Almighty, that's what you should be calling him. Actually, do you know what, you shouldn't even be looking at him. You should be on your knees, pal.”

The man barked out a half-formed retort, the words faltering when Crowley cocked his head to the side, glowering as he took Aziraphale’s hand in his own. Realising his request for them to _do what they want in private but keep it behind closed doors_ was not a thing likely to happen on that particular spring afternoon, he looked from angel to demon and shook his head furiously, storming off towards the gate as he released one last insult over his shoulder. “Nutters!”

As the man stalked away from them, Crowley braced his thumb against his index finger, eyes trained on the man’s retreating back. Ever one step ahead of whatever chaos Crowley had forming in his mind, Aziraphale curled a hand around the demon's and brought it down to rest between them. He shook his head. “Maybe we _should_ calm down.”

“If you think I’m going to be calm at any point from now until the end of eternity…”

And then, if only to stop their cover being blown within the first five minutes of their outdoor adventure, Aziraphale silenced him the only way he knew how, with a slow, deep kiss that left the demon tripping over promised threats that no longer held any real sense of menace.

“Now,” the angel murmured, as they broke apart, lips still aching with longing that was nowhere even close to being quenched. “About going somewhere more private?”

“Solid plan, angel, as always. Lead the way, let’s go, follow you anywhere and all that.”

***

Aziraphale had thwarted no less than five attempts at demonic miracles before they reached Anthony’s flat, where Crowley heaved a throaty exclamation of frustration as he dug around in his pocket for the keys.

“One little miracle isn’t going to give us away, angel.” As he tried the third key on the ring to no avail, Crowley turned to give Aziraphale a pleading look.

The angel tutted, tapping the slim bronze key and smiling victoriously as Crowley slid it into the lock and they heard that satisfying _clunk_ of a door unlocking. “I don’t know that, and you _certainly_ don’t. Your head office might not be paying attention but Gabriel is not going to let us go that easily.”

“I’m just saying, angel, there are two of us and one of that purple-eyed wanker. Don’t you think we could take him?” Crowley looked back at the angel as he stepped over the threshold, pushing the door closed behind them and locking it for good measure, as if that might stop a potential onslaught of heavenly emissaries sent to return them for judgement.

“Look at us,” Aziraphale said plainly, gesturing first to his own cream ensemble and then at Crowley’s sprayed-on jeans. “Do we look capable of vanquishing anything other than a cream tea and a…rock and roll photoshoot?”

“Rock and roll.” Crowley looked down at his jeans. He looked up at Aziraphale. And then he sighed. “We’ve moved on from bebop, at least.”

There was a patter of paws across the floorboards then and both angel and demon turned to find Barnaby’s familiar black form trotting towards them, ears piqued with curiosity as he sniffed Crowley’s calf, then reared up to press his front paws against his thighs, stretching up to treat the collar of his black shirt to a welcoming lick. He sat back down, tail swiping back and forth across the floor as his gaze darted from the demon to the treat jar on the sideboard, as if he was sure such a welcome deserved a reward.

“Hello, my boy.” Crowley knelt down in front of him, hands coming up to rub the soft velvet of his ears as he smiled at him, marvelled at the simple joy of giving his dog a much overdue stroke. “You get more handsome every time I see you. Can you show me where he keeps the treats? I think you can, can't you? What a good boy.”

As Barnaby galloped happily to show Crowley precisely where the treats were secreted in an old biscuit tin, circling back around to make sure he was following him, Aziraphale shrugged out of his jacket and grinned at the two of them, demon and faithful hound, reunited once again. He remembered the look of cautious excitement on Crowley’s face when he had set Barnaby on the floor of their home and watched the puppy stumble across to the demon, as if he had recognised his master on first sight. _Like recognises like_ , the angel thought with a wry smile.

It was a strange emotion he was feeling, he mused, settling down on the sofa and watching Crowley ask Barnaby politely to sit, then lay down, then roll over, before tossing out a treat that the dog caught in his mouth, immediately bounding to his feet for another round of tricks. As they had walked, no, _strolled_ back from the garden, hand in hand, arms swinging merrily between them, there hadn’t been a thought in his mind but pure happiness at walking side by side next to the love of his life.

That was it, he realised, with a jolt of emotion that left him swallowing thickness in his throat; there had been nothing in his mind but love, nothing but delight at he and Crowley finding each other again, despite it all, together just the way they should always have been, happy and unafraid. There had been no looking fearfully over his shoulder in case heaven’s eyes were following their every move, no prickling terror that they were about to be discovered, no nervous worry for Crowley’s safety. It was gone. That fear, that lifelong, eternal fear of persecution, of judgement, it had fallen away the moment he had forged that better world, a place where angel and demon could stop running and just _be_.

“Crowley,” he murmured, breaking away into a cough to disguise his wavering voice.

“Mmm?” The demon looked up lazily, turned his attention back to Barnaby a moment later, both hands rubbing circles on either side of the dog’s chest as Barnaby butted his head against Crowley’s arm in a burst of affection.

“I feel…safe,” he said finally, realising he meant it, realising it was the first time he had felt anything close to safety. In their new world, he understood, there was no higher authority to worry about, to bend to; _they_ were the only higher authority. There was, at last, nobody to answer to.

“Oh, angel, come here.” Crowley left Barnaby with one final pat, joined Aziraphale on the sofa and wound an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I feel it too. Something’s different here. It’s…I don’t know, something’s lifted, though, hasn’t it?”

“I think it’s freedom,” the angel breathed, fingers pressed to the sharp triangle of skin exposed at the unbuttoned collar of Crowley’s shirt.

“Do you remember those nights?”

“Of _course_ I do, every one of them. Those hopeless, wonderful nights. This is everything we always dreamed of back then.” Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in his own, pressed his lips to each of his fingers in turn, a kiss for each of those stolen nights.

“You always told me you’d take me somewhere where we wouldn’t have to run any more. I always knew you would. I meant it, Aziraphale, you’ve always been the bravest one of us.”

The angel laughed, looking away for a moment, out of embarrassment, out of shame. “I don’t think what I did for all those years was brave, Crowley. I think it was selfish, I think it was…”

“…In the past. It was in the past, angel. In another world, another lifetime now. This is what matters. This, here. We’re here, we’re safe, we got out. We made it.”

“We did, didn’t we?” An exhale of amusement, of barely believing it was true, as if the notion of it was too great a victory to truly comprehend. “And now there’s just one thing left to do.”

“Sneak Raphael out of heaven?”

“Now there are just two things left to do.”

“Smother Gabriel with his own sense of self-importance?”

Aziraphale sighed, gesturing up and down the length of their bodies. “Now there are just _three_ things left to do.”

Crowley nodded, as understanding washed over him. “Ah, of course. The old, er, four souls, two bodies debacle.”

“ _Quite_ the debacle indeed.” The angel raised both eyebrows, nodding slowly. “Any more brainwaves while you were rattling around in Sergeant Snake Hips’ cranial recesses?”

“Well-” The demon was cut short before he could confirm whether or not any brainwaves had occurred. He froze, brows knitting together as he patted the front pocket of his jeans. He pulled out his phone, well, Anthony’s phone, and frowned at it. “That’s weird.”

“What?” Aziraphale asked, leaning forward as though the message might have come from Gabriel himself, beamed down from heaven through celestial 4G.

Crowley slid the phone back into his pocket, ignoring the second round of vibrations as the message remained unread. He looked back at Aziraphale, smiling. “Nothing, it’s just that you’re the only person who ever called me. Getting a message while you’re sitting next to me, it's strange.”

“Mmm, yes, there’s rather a lot here that’s strange. The plants, for one.” Aziraphale looked around the flat, gaze lingering on the couple of token plant pots displayed on a shelf near the window.

Next to him, Crowley let out a rumbling sigh. “You mean the lack of plants. I can’t stand it, angel, it’s so…barren. First thing tomorrow we’re going to a…a plant shop.”

“A garden centre.”

“Yes, whatever, a garden centre, a plant shop. It’s all the same. A place where humans acquire plants.”

“Do you mean to tell me you, Anthony J Crowley, giver of life to all of the world’s greenery, have never actually bought a plant?”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale as if it was very plain that _he_ was the one making absolutely no sense at all. “Why would _I_ need to _buy_ plants, angel? I can just…make them, will them into being, miracle them into existence.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, shaking his head and muttering something about horticulture and the economy before he remembered more pressing matters were at hand. “We’ll make our way to a garden centre post haste in the morning. What were we talking about before, anyway?”

“You were on about saving the world earlier, that’s what I want to hear more about. Go on then, what’s your plan, or did you just say it because it sounded good in the moment?”

Aziraphale paused, pursing his lips, before they creased into a little smile. “It _did_ sound good, though, didn’t it?”

“Yes, yes, very epic, very…angelic, my sweet principality. Now, which world were you referring to? Your new safe haven or my beloved ball of rock?”

“I fear it’s a bit late for your ball of rock, my love.” When Aziraphale spoke his voice was tentative, as if he wasn’t sure how best to break the news, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to say the words at all. He looked across at Crowley, gauging the demon’s response. To his relief, he nodded sadly, as if he knew any notion of salvation for the Earth was a fruitless endeavour. _Another one of the universe’s forgone conclusions_ , Aziraphale thought glumly.

“I know.” Crowley sighed, fingernail scratching at a streak of mud that had splashed onto the ankle of his jeans in the rain storm they’d been caught in earlier. “I might have an overblown sense of self-importance but even I don’t think the two of us can overcome all of heaven and hell combined. Afraid it’s curtains for the good old Pale Blue Dot.”

“I can live with it.” Aziraphale raised his chin defiantly. “Providing it takes Gabriel with it, of course.”

The demon smiled, a slow quirk of the lips, his tongue caught between his teeth as he ruminated on the idea of the world he had helped Raphael build all those millennia ago claiming one last angelic victim as it crumpled in on itself. Vengeance, the last stage of its life cycle, perhaps.

“It was the fire in the bookshop, Crowley, that’s the thing that got me worrying.”

“I know.” He laid a hand on Aziraphale’s thigh, giving it a little squeeze as he thought back to that awful night, to the heart-rending panic he’d felt as Anthony had driven over to the shop and he’d been filled with all the horrified memories of the first time he’d stood there and watched the bookshop burn, fearing that might have been the thing to tear the two of them apart forever. “And this time there was no handy little antichrist to pick up the pieces. It’s almost ready, though, isn’t it? Perhaps we can help them out while we’re here, help get things back up and running.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I… Yes, we _should_ help them get things back up and running, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about actually. But what I meant was…there should have been more of a shift afterwards. Something of an untethering. We should have _felt_ something, Crowley. The portal, it burned away in the fire. I thought it was the only thing linking us to Earth, I thought we pulled away after that, that this world became separate but, oh, I did this, didn’t I? I brought so much of the Earth with us, things I couldn’t bear to leave behind. The garden, _your_ garden, your dingy little club, my favourite shop on the corner that does the…”

“Overpriced little cakes you love so much, yes, I spotted that made a glorious reappearance on this side of the rapture. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but our celebrations that the Earth is destined to self-destruct and take Gabe and the rest of the God Squad with it were slightly uninformed, given that this place will go down with the ship?”

Aziraphale sucked in a deep breath, lips pressed tightly together as Crowley waited for the angel to tell him he was wrong, that he had completely the wrong end of the stick, that he was catastrophising again. Instead, the angel smiled apologetically and shrugged his shoulders. “Basically. Yes. That’s my worry.”

“Your _worry_? It’s the bloody end of the world, angel. Again. Literally. Why does everywhere we try to live want to end itself? Is it us, Aziraphale? I mean, I’m seeing a pattern.”

“It’s the…” Aziraphale trailed off, eyes flicking upward before he leaned in, lowering his voice as if he was sure somebody up above must be listening. “It’s the _celestial realm_ situation. I’m starting to think it’s not the Earth we’re linked to but _up there_ and _down there_. There isn’t a heaven here, is there? And I’m sure there’s not a hell either. Can you feel if there’s a hell? Can you feel anything at all, any burning desire to go down below? If this place could stand on its own two feet…”

“Burning desire.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“You really have a knack for saying the worst possible thing, don’t you? And the thing is, I can never tell if you do it on purpose.”

“Hmm, one of the universe’s great mysteries,” Aziraphale mused, rolling his eyes as he shifted closer to Crowley on the sofa, bracing both hands on the demon’s thighs. “Look, I think I know what we need to do. First thing’s first, we need to get our bodies back. Well, probably not the original ones, not sure there’ll be much good to us now. But we need bodies, we can’t keep sharing like this, it’s highly impractical.”

“Actually, angel, first thing’s first, we need to eat something. We’re going to have to look after our corporations now, you know? No eating and drinking just because the mood takes us. Regular meals. Five a day. Or is that vegetables? And water. Lots of water. We’re like plants. Except we don’t have to be watered from below. I’m starving. When was the last time I was starving? I haven’t been properly hungry since…I don’t know.”

“1969. Stonewall. You almost swallowed that hot dog whole.”

“That was just a cry for your attention, if I’m honest.”

“Well, I think-” Aziraphale stopped mid-sentence, eyes darting to Crowley’s face to shoot him an incredulous look that softened, almost immediately, into hopeless adoration. “You’ve always had my attention, Crowley, ever since you sauntered up to me in Eden and started talking about lead balloons.”

“More of a slither than a saunter, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, you were still sauntering even then. You don’t need legs to saunter, my dear.” A low grumble rose up from the angel’s stomach then and he clapped his hands together. “Right then, a spot of lunch before we move onto the harder stuff, eh?”

“Brilliant, I was just thinking we should have a drink to celebrate.” Crowley followed the angel into the kitchen, mentally running through the various alcoholic options he knew Anthony had nestled atop the makeshift bar on top of the sideboard in the living room. “Whisky?”

“Ah, well, yes, a drink would be lovely but I was actually referring to the pickle we find ourselves in. How we’re, er, going to create our own little celestial realm and save this world and all its inhabitants from meeting the same sticky end as Earth.”

Crowley hopped up onto the worktop, fingers curling around the edge of the smooth wood as he contemplated the mammoth task Aziraphale had so casually laid out before them. He drummed his fingers against the worktop, wondering if a sensible answer laid within his mind. It didn’t, and so he decided to go with his back up option. Sarcasm, followed by a snack.

***

“I think you're right,” Aziraphale said, pausing to swallow a bite of cheese and pickle sandwich, washed down with tea that had been left to infuse for at least five minutes too long. He wrinkled his nose at the taste, then shook away the discomfort, returning to the matter at hand. “We can’t do anything that might interfere with their lives. When they take control of these vessels again they need to slip back into their routine as if nothing at all happened. They’ll remember everything, won’t they?”

“Yeah, sure they will. It’ll be like Cornwall all over again. They’ll feel like they’ve come out of…brain fog, or something. Might be a bit hazy for a while but everything will be there in their memories. It’s a thing now, brain fog. Stress, or something. The cult of work. Capitalism. Or caffeine. Something like that, anyway. Brain fog, it’s a thing.”

“Yes. Brain fog. Quite.” The angel looked at him over the rim of his chipped mug, which bore a picture on the side that was a great likeness to Barnaby, even down to the troublesome glint in the dog’s eye. “So, we’re agreed? Whatever we do, we have to keep up appearances. Nobody can know we aren’t Agent Angel Face and Sergeant Snake Hips.”

Crowley sighed, nudging Aziraphale’s foot with his own under the table. “I really feel like we need to stop using those code names. They’re supposed to be private.”

“Oh, please, as if there are any boundaries left, Crowley, honestly.”

“Speak for yourself. I’ve been, excuse the expression, an _angel_ in there. Closing my eyes, going off to my happy place whenever they’re…” The demon trailed off, loathe to even entertain the idea of his human counterpart indulging in…shenanigans. It would be, he had decided, akin to watching a sibling in the act. A younger sibling, of course, given that he was, undoubtedly, the older and wiser of the two Crowleys.

Aziraphale pulled him out of his reverie then, offering the linguistic catchall they had deviated to countless times throughout history. “Fraternising?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Really?” Aziraphale swallowed another bite of his sandwich, fighting back a smirk as Crowley stared him down. “You haven’t even snuck a little peek? You, with your…appetite?”

“No! Of course I haven’t! I’m not going to _watch_ uninvited like a…like a _lurker._ Have you been peeking, angel? Have you been _lurking?_ ”

“I most certainly have not been lurking.” Aziraphale drew himself up then, huffing at the mere notion of being considered a lurker. “I have never lurked a day in my life.”

“Oh, please, I was there in Paris.”

“ _We’re not supposed to speak about Paris!_ ” The words came out in a garbled rush, the angel’s voice rising in volume until the final word tumbled out of his mouth as nothing but a desperate squeak. There was a moment of almost silence, with Aziraphale’s panting breaths the only sound in the room, and then Crowley uttered a little chuckle and turned his attention back to the bagel he was halfway through eating.

“So,” the demon said finally, “no interfering in the little ones’ lives. We’re just going to lay low until we think of a plan. Fly under the radar, attract no attention whatsoever. Business as usual.”

Aziraphale smiled, reaching across the table to slide his fingers through the demon’s. “This is anything but business as usual, my love.”

“Defying the odds to be together? Seems pretty business as usual for us, doesn’t it?”

***

The sun had dipped below London’s tower blocks and that perfect spring day was close to becoming a perfect spring night, and in a little flat in Pimlico an angel and a demon were getting reacquainted. Intimately.

“Crowley…”

“No no no, no talking.” Crowley shook his head, pressed his lips against the angel’s before he could say another word. There’d been enough talking for one day, as far as he was concerned, enough time spent discussing other people. There was a long night ahead that was to consist of nothing but darkness and his angel and the sort of closeness so all-encompassing that he could barely distinguish where he ended and Aziraphale began. They could almost be one, two halves of a whole, darkness and light, good and evil. He smiled against Aziraphale’s lips, chastising himself before he kissed the angel again, reaching up to run a hand through his hair, brushing the curls back from his forehead, feeling them sweep back into place a second later. He didn’t have to be the darkness, not in their new world. _Still, old habits_ , he thought to himself. As if he could ever feel like anything but the dark foil for Aziraphale’s light, as if anybody could feel like anything other than a shadow in the presence of such sweet, innate _goodness_.

“We get to start again tonight, angel. A new beginning,” the demon whispered, the words half-formed against Aziraphale’s skin as he breathed them against his neck, followed them up with a quick nip against the sweeping arc of skin above his collarbone. _Tonight I find you all over again, angel, every perfect inch of you. And tomorrow night, the same, and the night after that. It’s us now, me and you. No more running, no more rushing, no more stolen nights. Every night is ours._

“I thought there was no talking.” Aziraphale leaned up on his elbows, hooking a finger around the strap that hung around Crowley’s neck, the harmonica swinging gently between them. “Maybe we can lose this, just for the time-being, I know you’re very fond of it but could you save the serenade for afterwards, flourish for a job well done, perhaps?”

In a heartbeat the harmonica found a new home on the coffee table, joined a moment later by Crowley’s shirt, Aziraphale’s waistcoat and then, after a string of expletives when it had buzzed to life for the fifth time that hour, Crowley’s phone made up the final party member. Distractions cast aside, the demon found Aziraphale’s lips in the darkness, the fingers of one hand deftly unbuttoning the angel’s shirt in the sort of fluid motion that could only come with years or, perhaps, millennia of practise.

“A quiet life, angel, that’s what you said we were going to build, do you remember?” Crowley slid an arm to the small of the angel’s back, pulled him up until they were face to face in the darkness. He glanced across at the phone, skittering wildly across the coffee table as it teetered dangerously close to the edge, one more vibration away from toppling over onto the floor. “Nothing quiet about this, is there? Bloody thing hasn’t stopped since we got back.”

“Well,” Aziraphale murmured, the word devolving into a moan as he felt Crowley’s fingers tug at his belt. “Why don’t you switch it off so we can get to work on that _new beginning_ you mentioned?”

“I always said you were the smart one.” With a smile loaded with intention, Crowley tore his gaze away from the angel for long enough to grab the phone off of the table. His thumb hovered above the power button for a second and there, in the cool light radiating from the phone, Aziraphale saw the demon’s face contort in a picture of absolute dread.

“What?” he asked, shifting backwards and sitting up, feeling the atmosphere shift from desire to panic. “Crowley, what’s wrong?”

The demon leaned back to click on a lamp, then waved the phone in Aziraphale’s face, gulping as he waited for the angel to take in the missed calls, the cheery messages of _what time do you want us? Is half nine all right?_

Half past nine lay almost forty minutes in the future when an angel and a demon stared at each other in terror and chorused two words in perfect, horrified unison.

“The party!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, my loves! I hope you all had an amazing festive period and got a chance to relax and eat all the yummy food (first priority, always). I'm about to head to the airport ready to fly to Iceland in the morning - will obviously be revisiting all the spots I mentioned in Part One and daily cinnamon buns are, of course, a given :D.
> 
> So, the boys are back. Time for one more turn around the IY dance floor, what do you say?
> 
> Chapter two is coming on Wednesday 8th so I shall see you then <3
> 
> The playlist will be updated with every chapter and can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cg2M5HKvnoTPYStsMT0c6


	2. Do It Clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s not worry about something that hasn’t even happened? Look at who you’re talking to. All I know how to do is worry about things that haven’t even happened.”

**March. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

**Thirty Seven Minutes Until the Party.**

Thirty seven minutes before an angel and a demon were due to host their first house party, tensions were running high. For Aziraphale, at least. Crowley, meanwhile, was trying to enjoy a quiet drink before the mayhem began.

“I _knew_ he should have called into Fortnum’s for a wellington,” Aziraphale wailed, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa, hands wringing in front of his stomach as he stared desperately at Crowley, who was reclined on the sofa, one leg up on the cushions, the other foot tapping gently against the ground, whisky in hand as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Of course that was your idea.” The demon rolled his eyes, typing out a message to Anthony’s group chat to tell them nine thirty was fine and that they could pick up his order from the Dominos round the corner on their way if they fancied making themselves useful. “A wellington. At a house party.”

“Everybody-”

“Yes, all right, everybody loves a wellington.” Crowley held up a hand, silencing the angel before he could launch into his inevitable passionate defence of pastry-wrapped meat. “We haven’t got time for this right now. We’ve got thirty six minutes.”

“Well, my dear, we would stand a much better chance of being ready if you would do something other than sprawl around drinking whisky.”

Crowley took a long sip, savouring every rich, woody note of the drink as he swilled it around his mouth before swallowing it, jabbing an index finger in Aziraphale’s direction. “You should try it, sprawling, does wonders for stress levels. You don’t want to get him all stressed out, do you? Plays havoc with the immune system, stress.”

“Brain fog, stress…what in heaven’s name are you wittering on about?”

“Do you know almost three quarters of adults in this country have felt so stressed in the last twelve months that they felt overwhelmed in the workplace? That’s just the start of it, angel. It’s this book, you see, called Rewired. Anthony’s been reading it. It’s a riot, you should tell your little man to give it a go. Might help with all that dithering.” Crowley swung himself up off of the sofa, draining the last mouthful of whisky from his glass and strutting over to Aziraphale, kissing him lightly on the cheek as he disappeared into the kitchen.

“It’s not _dithering_ ,” Aziraphale hissed, following him. “It’s proceeding with caution and it’s got me this far so I don’t intend to… Crowley, what are you doing?”

The demon was kneeling down on the floor, arms braced on either side of the open cupboard as he all but disappeared inside. Eventually he re-emerged, red-faced as he pulled a stack of large plastic bowls free from the depths of the cupboard. “Punch bowls. That’s what we need. Just need to get them all good and merry and they won’t notice a thing. Rinse these out, will you?”

“Hell’s most domesticated demon,” the angel murmured to nobody in particular, running the bowls swiftly under the tap before depositing them, right side up, on the draining board.

Crowley tutted, turning them over to allow the drips of water to drain away. “You can’t share a body with Mr Neat without picking up a few tips. You, on the other hand, somehow yours has made you even more…”

“Even more _what_?” Aziraphale nudged the demon’s shoulder, splaying both palms as if he couldn’t wait to hear the impending character assassination. As Crowley turned his attention to wiping down the countertops and it became apparent an answer wasn’t forthcoming, the angel shook his head incredulously. “I don’t know why you’re so calm. This is going to be a disaster, Crowley. If they figure out we’re not who we’re supposed to be… We should just cancel the party.”

“Look, let’s not worry about something that hasn’t even happened. It might be fine, they might not notice a thing, we just have to do our best impression of a dog walker and a bookseller. I know that’ll be a bit of a stretch for you but you’ll have to do your best.” Crowley paused, taking in Aziraphale’s look of open-mouthed horror and hands that hadn’t stopped fidgeting since they’d entered the kitchen. “Perfect, angel, you look terrified. They won’t suspect a thing.”

“ _Let’s not worry about something that hasn’t even happened_? Look at who you’re talking to. All I know how to do is worry about things that haven’t even happened. I can’t do this, Crowley, I’ll never be able to pull this off. They’ll take one look at me and they’ll know. And then Gabriel will know. And then we’ll be back there in a flash and he’ll have us up on that stage. He’ll have my highlight reel of shame to hand, I know he will. It’s all right for you, you’ve already seen your worst moments but…oh good grief, they’ll know all about St Tropez, of course, about the boat. They’ve already shown me photos, Crowley, they know _everything_.”

“If stealing champagne from the bourgeoisie is the worst thing they’ve got on you then you’ve escaped pretty lightly.” Crowley stopped cleaning then, shaking his head and placing both hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders, leaning in close to look him in the eye. “How did you make the leap from opening the door to a couple of friends to awaiting judgement in heaven? It’s your mind, angel, it’s lying to you. You need to rewire it, learn how to stop it before it runs away with you. It’s all in the book.”

And then, for only the fifth time that century, Aziraphale swore. It was becoming a habit nobody had seen coming. “I don’t want to hear about the _bloody_ book, Crowley.”

The demon raised both eyebrows as he let Aziraphale’s sentence echo around them, the shock of his outburst magnified with each ringing refrain. By the time the sound had faded away, the angel was looking sheepishly down at his feet.

“Just give me something to do. A job. I need a distraction.”

“You can hoover,” Crowley said finally, nodding out towards the living room. “All that dog hair, just have a quick whip round with the hoover, that would be a massive help.”

Aziraphale bit his lip, closing his eyes and sighing as if he’d just exhaled his last iota of patience, as if all the calm and peace he'd felt earlier that day had galloped away without a trace. “I’m an angel, Crowley. I don’t know how to hoover. I can sweep at a push.”

“Figure it out, Aziraphale. You’re going to start stressing _me_ out in a minute. We’ll never cope if we’re both on the edge. Yin yang…all of that, you know? Balance. I don’t know. You know what I mean.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you mean.”

Hands pressed to the angel’s hips, Crowley ushered him out of the kitchen and sent him on his way, clapping his hands for extra emphasis as Aziraphale stumbled hopelessly towards the Dyson leaning against the wall. “Twenty four minutes! Go! Hoover! Dog hair!”

***

**Nineteen Minutes Until the Party.**

As he stood in a kitchen that didn’t belong to him and rifled through the cupboards to find enough glasses for their guests, whose arrival was drawing ever closer with every tick of the clock, Crowley was trying his hardest not to let Aziraphale’s panic creep into his own thoughts. It was easier said than done, however, given that Anthony hadn’t made it to the end of his anti-stress, anti-anxiety bible, Rewired, before Crowley had taken it upon himself to take over operations. _Why didn’t I let him get past chapter six? How am I ever going to learn how to control my goblin brain if I don’t read up on how to dispel anxious thinking patterns? Where did he leave his copy anyway? Maybe I have time for a few pages of quiet reading before… Wait._ The demon stopped mid-way through his frantic monologue, gently unloading an armful of glasses on the worktop. _Why is it so quiet anyway? Why can’t I hear the hoover?_

He jogged towards the living room, calling out for Aziraphale and wondering if his demand for the angel to hoover the flat might have been the chore that broke the principality’s back. He paused in the doorway, arms folded across his chest as he felt all traces of panic ebb away, content in the knowledge that however nervous he might be, Aziraphale was undoubtedly in worse shape.

The angel was quietly letting out frustrated little bleating sounds as he dragged the silent vacuum cleaner back and forth across the floorboards, looking helplessly at the little tumbleweeds of black dog hair that were still gathered in the corners of the room. From his comfortable bed, which doubled up as a front row seat from which to witness Aziraphale’s impending meltdown, Barnaby looked on, watching the angel with a curious expression on his face, as if he couldn’t fathom his lack of domesticity.

“Angel.”

Aziraphale looked up, sweat beading on his brow as he rattled the hoover uselessly in one hand, as if that might stir it to life. As a streak of sweat trickled down the side of one cheek, the angel wailed desperately. “It won’t suck, Crowley!”

In the doorway, Crowley paused, infinite possibilities of snappy one-liners rearing up in his brain. He shook his head. _Not the time._ “Give that to me, go on, you go and have a shower and calm down.”

When Aziraphale spoke his voice was a tentative plea, as if the idea that had just sprung to mind was the only possible thing that stood any chance of helping him calm down. “D-do I have time for a bath?”

“No.” Crowley laid a hand on his forearm, shaking his head sadly as he took the Dyson. “No, I’m afraid you don’t have time for a bath. But I’ll run you one tomorrow, yeah? Loads of bath bombs, an _unholy_ amount.”

“I do like bath bombs.” Aziraphale rocked back on his heels, face brightening. “Will you get in it with me? I don’t think it would be as much fun on my own.”

Crowley smiled, one hand finding its way to the angel’s waist and pulling him close for a kiss, just a peck, and then another, slower. A kiss of solidarity, something to centre them both. “Course I will. Now, we’ve got sixteen minutes until they get here and we still need to hoover and…I know I’m forgetting something.”

“Drinks!” Aziraphale cried, clapping his hands against his thighs as his jaw dropped. “How could we forget drinks? How are we supposed to get them too merry to notice we’re _us_ without any drinks? Crowley, grab the whisky. What else have they got? Oh, heavens. My heart, Crowley, it’s flapping.”

“Fluttering.”

“Yes, fluttering, whatever, doing that hither and tither business. Why does it feel so weak?”

“Are you thirsty?” Crowley asked, looking back towards the kitchen before leaning heavily against the vacuum cleaner. “Is that why we’re panicking, are we just thirsty? This is exhausting, isn’t it? Remembering to eat, remembering to drink, descending into a dread spiral if you leave either a minute too long.”

“Who would ever want to be human, eh? Fetch me a glass of water while I’m in the shower, will you? It might settle my nerves.”

“On it,” Crowley promised, nodding sagely as Aziraphale disappeared into the bathroom. He glanced down at his watch. Fourteen minutes. Clicking the hoover into action, he rolled it back and forth across the floorboards in the exact motion he’d watched Anthony do countless times over the months. Just like that, all traces of dust and dog hair and pizza crumbs disappeared from sight. _Like magic_ , he thought, laughing to himself.

It wasn’t just nerves, Crowley realised, as he rested the vacuum cleaner back against the wall and poured Aziraphale, and himself, a glass of water. He downed his in one, refilling it once more for good measure. There was something else churning in his stomach. Was it excitement? Yes. A flurry of anticipation for the night ahead. It was, he mused, the first time he and Aziraphale would ever have hosted guests, the first time they would ever have socialised together as a couple, those two trips to the Devil’s Den in the old world notwithstanding. It was a little thrill amongst the fear, the idea of the two of them interacting with friends, albeit friends who weren’t exactly their own, as if they were a regular, happy couple, just two people in love having a quiet gathering with their nearest and dearest. It was the first chance they had ever had, he realised, to be _average_ , if only for one night.

“Drinks,” he said to himself, index fingers pointing towards the sideboard that he intended on turning into the bar for the evening. The glasses were ready and waiting to be filled, the punch bowls were ready to be spiked with whatever Lily planned on intoxicating them all with, and he smiled as he arranged Anthony’s alcohol collection in a more pleasing manner next to the glasses. It was a meagre collection, all things considered: a half-drunk bottle of vodka somebody must have left after another party; an almost empty bottle of Baileys that looked as though it had seen more Christmas outings than any brave bottle of Baileys should; a smattering of gin and whisky bottles, gin having arrived on the menu shortly after Zira had appeared on the scene. He picked up one of the gin bottles, turning it over in his hands and smiling at the familiar brown paper wrapping, now that was definitely something Aziraphale had brought over from the old world. He put it back down, twisting his lips into a little grimace as he pondered the unimpressive spread of drinks.

 _Got to be something else around here._ Kneeling down to get a better look in the cupboard, Crowley sighed, feeling an ache in his left knee. _Didn’t plan on spending so much of this evening on my knees. No. That’s a lie, isn’t it? Planned on spending most of it on my knees, if I’m honest, just thought I’d be situation between a pair of angelic thighs rather than neck deep in Anthony’s depressing cupboard of chaos. Why are there…why are there peanuts in here? How do these have a sell by date that predates this entire world? It doesn’t even make… Oh, jackpot._

Clambering roughly to his feet, Crowley held his prize aloft, gazing at it victoriously, all but hopping excitedly from one foot to the other as he waited for Aziraphale to emerge from the bathroom. He placed the bottle front and centre, knew it was exactly what they needed to help the night go off without a hitch. _Can’t get suspicious we’re celestial visitors if they can’t see two feet in front of themselves, can they?_

“Finally,” he exclaimed, ushering Aziraphale over as the angel padded out of a misty bathroom, tendrils of steam whipping out over his shoulders as he rubbed a towel roughly through his hair and slipped back into his waistcoat, pink-cheeked and far calmer than he had been ten minutes previously. “Come here, angel, look what I… Oh, you smell great.”

Aziraphale beamed proudly, leaning his head to one side to let Crowley have a closer sniff of his neck. “Found it in the cupboard in the bathroom. Dashing, isn’t it? It reminded me of you.”

“That’s because it _is_ mine, well, Anthony’s.” Crowley dabbed at the angel’s neck with the cuff of his black shirt, attempting to wipe away all traces of the smell. “You can’t wear that, they’ll know something’s up if they walk in and Zira doesn’t smell like Zira. Wait there, oh and check out what I found hiding in the back of the cupboard. What do you say, for old time’s sake?”

Aziraphale turned, bursting into joyous laughter as he spotted the bottle resting next to the glasses. He picked it up, trying the lid and nodding to himself as the seal held tight. He called out to Crowley, who emerged from the bedroom a moment later, rectangular glass bottle in hand. “It’s sealed, looks like those two haven’t tried it either.”

“Well, be rude for them to try it before us, wouldn’t it?” Crowley grinned, then waved the bottle of aftershave temptingly in Aziraphale’s face. “This is what you’re supposed to smell like. Anthony keeps a bottle of it in his bedside table, soppy git. Stand still, let me give you a spritz.”

***

**Four Minutes Until the Party.**

“Let’s send them away,” Aziraphale moaned, the words falling against Crowley’s lips as the demon bent his head for another kiss. “Let’s just turn the lights off and pretend we’re not in.”

“Tempting,” the demon breathed, fingers circling the angel’s wrists and pressing them back against the door, holding him still with one hand as the other tugged at the button of his trousers. Beside them, the angel’s belt lay discarded on the floor, coiled like a snake.

“Meant to be your job, I know.” Aziraphale opened his mouth to continue speaking, words devolving into nothing more than a sharp inhale as he felt Crowley’s teeth catch his lower lip, biting down just hard enough to elicit a little hiss of pain. _Perfect._

“If I get a move on we won’t have to send anyone away.” After one last quick kiss, Crowley released the angel’s hands, running his own down the length of Aziraphale’s body as he knelt before him, fingers curling in the waistband of his trousers as he pressed his lips and tongue to that soft strip of warm skin at the angel’s waist. _Heaven,_ he thought, looking up to find his eyes meeting Aziraphale’s, _he looks like heaven. Tastes like it too._

He felt fingers slide achingly slowly through his hair, fingertips raking against his scalp, and closed his eyes, letting out a breath of desire as he peeled the angel’s trousers down past his hips, over his thighs, pushing them down to…

_Bzzzt_

“That _bloody_ intercom,” Crowley hissed, head craned back as he gazed up at Aziraphale. “To be continued. Later.”

“As if I can wait until _later_.” The angel raised both eyebrows desperately, as if to illustrate that he really, really couldn’t be expected to wait until whenever the unspecified _later_ would be. Still, there were more pressing matters at hand, so he reluctantly fastened his trousers and followed Crowley to the door, where the demon was ready and waiting to greet their guests, looking every inch the anxious, guitar-playing, dog-walking Londoner he was pretending to be.

_Bzzzt_

“You have to let them up, Crowley.” Aziraphale nodded towards the intercom, as if the demon hadn’t spent the best part of the previous three decades living in residences that came complete with such functionality.

“Ah, of course.” Crowley leaned in close, holding one finger over the green button. “Hello?”

“Hello, little ones!” Two warm voices cooed the words, and Crowley promptly felt his heart plummet through his chest, down his legs and crash haphazardly through the floor. It was possible, he thought, that it might not stop falling until it reached the underside of the globe, or whatever shape Aziraphale’s creation took the form of.

“It’s Raphael.” Aziraphale smiled brightly, tugging Crowley’s finger away from the button as they heard the intercom fall silent.

A heartbeat later, Crowley turned to the angel, tears of disbelief and wonder filling his eyes as he realised who he was about to come face to face with after so many dreadful years of searching, of regret, of hateful not-knowing. “And Lucifer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy hump day, chums! How has your week been going so far? For those of you back at work/uni, I hope it hasn't been too tiring and that you have fun plans for the weekend, or relaxing ones, at least. Apologies for the deviation from my usual upload time but I'm about to go and climb a big hill so needs must :D. Timings should be back to normal from next week!
> 
> I'm coming to you live from chilly, snowy, beautiful Iceland and it's been a wonderful week. So much nature, so many stars, so much time spent watching the moon...you know how much I love the moon 😂. And so many cinnamon buns, as is customary.
> 
> Chapter three is coming on Wednesday January 15th and it's party time! Pizzas, punch, and that mysterious bottle Crowley found lurking at the back of the cupboard. HMM, what could it be, I wonder?
> 
> Thank you all so much for joining me here for Part III, I'm so excited to share the story with you. I hope you enjoy it <3
> 
> Oh, and I think most of you have read it by now but, just in case, chapter two of The Quiet Rebellion of Raphael Morningstar has published here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20401738/chapters/52250944


	3. The Magic Position

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As if the elephant in the room, namely Crowley’s tiptoeing on the edge of hysteria, couldn’t be ignored any longer, Raphael set his glass down on the sideboard and cupped Crowley’s face in both hands.

**March. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

“Aziraphale…” Crowley turned to the angel, fingers brushing the side of his hand. He took a step back, staring at the intercom as if it had just delivered news the demon thought impossible. “I never…”

“Crowley.” The angel placed a warm hand against his forearm, stopped himself a moment before peace flowed from his touch. No. No miracles. _So easy to forget_ , he thought, shaking his head. When he spoke he kept his voice soft, careful. He could see the demon’s jaw jump as his teeth ferreted away against the inside of his cheek. Nervous energy. It had to go somewhere. “It’s…it’s not _really_ Lucifer. It’s Luci, isn’t it?”

“Luci,” the demon said to himself, nodding slowly and pacing in a large circle, hands clasped behind his head. “It’s just Luci. It’s not…of course it’s not really them. They won't know me. Not _me_.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Aziraphale asked, leaning close to tuck a lock of hair behind Crowley’s ear, kissing his cheek while he was in the area. He stepped back, stroking his thumb across the bare skin in front of the demon’s ear. “I miss it, the tattoo. Your eyes too. Anthony's eyes are beautiful, of course, like autumn leaves in the sunlight, I know you’ve always loved the spray of colours when the leaves turn. But they’re not your eyes, not quite.”

“I’ll be me again soon enough, angel.” Crowley smiled, nose nuzzled to the angel’s cheek. “Tattoo and snake eyes and proclivity for mischief and all.”

“I would say I wouldn’t have you any other way but present events tell a somewhat different tale. Rather, I would have you any way I can, it seems.”

There was a knock at the door then, a cheery rapping of knuckles against wood, and Aziraphale gave the demon a little nod of reassurance, mouthing _you’ll be fine_ as he approached the door. Crowley nodded, inhaling deeply, holding the air in his lungs for three long beats before he exhaled, making a silent promise to stay calm, to do absolutely nothing at all that might appear out of the ordinary. He could do it, even if he was about to come face to face with the closest thing to guardians he had ever had, estranged for so many thousands of years. He would channel Anthony J. Crowley Jr: human, dog walker extraordinaire, always collected in the face of imminent chaos. Apparently.

Aziraphale was feeling a little nervous himself, though he couldn’t let it show in front of Crowley, not when he knew the rollercoaster of emotions the demon was about to hurtle headfirst through. If coming face to face with the human forms of Raphael and Lucifer was enough to leave _him_ breaking out in a cool sweat of trepidation and love, what in the world must Crowley be feeling? He had all but been raised by Raphael, had learned everything he knew about love and creation from the sweet archangel, forever patient, always nurturing. And Lucifer, well, everything that made Crowley _Crowley_ came from Lucifer, the one who had led him into temptation, the one who had taught him the nature of pride, of rebellion, of holding firm in your beliefs, even if those beliefs could lead to nowhere but destruction. It was Lucifer, after all, who had spearheaded the movement that had set Crowley on the path that had led them, both of them, to that very moment. _Perhaps Lucifer is the reason you and I are anything at all_ , Aziraphale thought, reaching out to squeeze Crowley’s hand one last time before he swung the door open and pasted an angelic smile on his face.

“Welcome, welcome!” Aziraphale’s voice rang out as he raised both hands in excitement, ushering Raphael and Luci over the threshold and into the living room. Once inside, he found himself staring at Raphael for a full two seconds longer than was comfortable, unable to tear his eyes away from the exact replica of the only one of heaven’s employees he had ever felt himself able to trust. And then there was Luci, a cloud of colour and perfume and textures, a thick emerald green scarf pulled free from their neck and deposited on the coat hook, heeled boots kicked off to reveal skinny jeans tucked into socks that had images of the Mona Lisa printed on one foot and the Venus de Milo on the other. In a flash of making themselves at home they stood four inches shorter, head hovering at Raphael’s shoulder level, had transformed themselves from something intimidating to something soft. Heavenly to earthly, Aziraphale thought, with a wry smile. “Now, while we wait for the others can I get you a…”

Before Aziraphale could execute the plan to ply all partygoers with copious amounts of alcohol, Luci had turned and caught sight of Crowley, who was standing in front of the sofa, fists clenched by his sides, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t believe it’s you.” The words were more of a desperate hiccup as Crowley rushed towards Luci and flung his arms around them, locking his fingers behind their back as if he never, ever intended on letting them go again. “I can’t believe you’re here, I thought… I thought I would never see you again. Lucifer…”

“…And the Guys will be here in just a moment,” Aziraphale interrupted, waggling a finger towards the front door and smiling knowingly at Raphael, who was shooting Luci a look of amusement and mild confusion, as if he had grown used to this sort of thing happening from time to time over the years. The angel took the opportunity to lean closer to Raphael, dropping his voice. “He’s over-tired.”

“ _Romantic_ reunion last night, was it?” Raphael laughed, clapping Aziraphale on the back and beaming at him. “We’re both delighted for you, of course. Oh, before I forget, we brought you this. Seemed like we should be celebrating, the two of you back together.”

As he produced a bottle of very fine wine from underneath one arm, Aziraphale weighed up whether or not it was grossly impolite to promptly stash it at the back of a cupboard until he and Crowley could enjoy it alone. Masquerading as a human was proving to be difficult business: navigating guests, conforming to etiquette, wrangling Crowley before he could cry on every single person who walked through the door.

“Of course you would see me again, you silly sausage.” Luci patted Crowley on the shoulder, disentangling his hands from their waist and leading him towards the makeshift bar. “Now, it seems like you need a drink more than I do. Oh, what have we here?”

“That’s for later.” Crowley sniffed, taking the dusty bottle out of their hands and waving it limply in Aziraphale’s direction. “For later, isn’t it, angel?”

Both angel and demon froze at the sound of the pet name hanging in the air. Eventually Aziraphale shook his head, laughing to himself. _At least they use the same pet names as us._ “Yes, dear, let’s hold off on that until everyone else is here. Raphael, whisky?”

“Won’t say no, Zira, never will.” Raphael nodded, following the angel over to the sideboard, murmuring in appreciation when a heavy glass of amber liquid was deposited in his hand. “Lovely. Now, we’ve got some news of our own actually. Had a call from the architects earlier. We’ve got a moving in date, at last. Housewarming in the works, of course, you’ll both be coming?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely.” Aziraphale grinned, elbowing Crowley lightly in the ribs. On autopilot, the demon nodded, wiping his eyes and sniffing quietly into the glass of wine he was cradling in one hand.

“What’s all this, you sweet boy?” As if the elephant in the room, namely Crowley’s tiptoeing on the edge of hysteria, couldn’t be ignored any longer, Raphael set his glass down on the sideboard and cupped Crowley’s face in both hands, which only served to propel the demon into even more violent sobbing.

“Started drinking early, did he?” Luci mused, leaning close to Aziraphale as the two of them watched Crowley place his hands gently on top of Raphael’s, wailing words nobody, not even Aziraphale, could ever hope to understand. Raphael nodded patiently, as if he was following along without any trouble at all.

“Nervous about the party,” Aziraphale said, deviating to his old mantra of necessary lies being far easier to keep up with if you kept them as close to the truth as possible. It was a strange feeling, standing in the presence of somebody who shared the great lawless Lucifer’s very essence, that towering charisma that bordered on hypnotic, pulling everything in its path closer, not caring a jot whether or not closer was where it wanted to be pulled. He had spent very little time in Lucifer’s presence in heaven, two or three brief encounters before everything had gone so desperately awry and then, of course, they had been gone without a trace. They had never left though, not really, not while their presence was still felt so heavily throughout heaven. Gabriel might have cast Lucifer out but he could never cast out the echo of that passionate spirit, even if what remained of it was a great deal quieter than before.

“I came to see him, you know, while you were apart.” Luci’s voice was light, though there was a hint of apology there. Whether it was genuine or not was anybody’s guess. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Aziraphale looked across at them, found them smiling back as easily as if they were sharing a drink with an old friend. He relaxed a little then. Perhaps the night really could go off without a hitch. He just had to get a handle on Crowley’s crying and they might stand a chance of remaining undetected. Although, he reasoned, even if any of their humans’ friends did suspect something, surely they could never even begin to guess at the truth. Not a natural leap, he thought, smiling, jumping from _something’s not quite right_ to _ah, must be a demon and angel on the run from a vengeful archangel._

“What, er, what did you say to him?” Aziraphale asked, rolling his glass gently to and fro as his eyes flitted from Luci across to Raphael, who was good-naturedly enduring an unending embrace at the hands of a very emotional demon. “Sorry, Luci, just bear with me a moment, I think he might need some water.”

“Oh, he’s all right.” Raphael laughed, smiling fondly at Crowley as Aziraphale tugged his arms away from the man’s waist and grabbed for his wrist.

“Come on, _human_ boyfriend,” he whispered the reminder, voice low as he pulled the demon behind him. “Let’s have a word in the kitchen.”

Before they could get to privacy, however, the front door burst open and Mick, Lily, Sammy and Dan tumbled inside, brandishing pizza boxes and bottles of drink and roaring for no reason other than excitement at the evening’s impending shenanigans.

“All right, hubbies?” Lily cried, slamming an armful of Dominos boxes down onto the coffee table before turning her attention to Aziraphale and Crowley. As her gaze settled on Crowley her eyes narrowed and she took a step forward, eyeing him suspiciously. “You look…have you changed your hair? Something’s different.”

“Yes! Yes, that’s it. Took him to my barber this afternoon.” Aziraphale nodded quickly, reaching up to run a hand through Crowley’s hair. “We’ll be with you in a moment, my dear. Drinks are on the side, help yourselves.”

Fingers wrapped tightly around Crowley’s elbow, Aziraphale guided him towards the kitchen, ignoring the raucous roars that followed them, as if they couldn’t possibly be slinking off into the kitchen for any reason that wasn’t sinfully nefarious.

Mercifully alone, Aziraphale marched Crowley back until he was pressed against the window, then looked hurriedly over his shoulder to ensure nobody else was within earshot. He leaned in close to the demon. “Are you all right? You’re crying an awful lot.”

“I’m sorry, angel.” The demon sniffed, running an index finger back and forth under one eye, as if it might do anything at all to stem the flow of long overdue tears. “It’s these human sensibilities, they cry so easily. I only cried twice in six thousand years before this.”

“Well, Crowley, that’s a lie, isn’t it? You cried twice just on Christmas day.”

“That wasn’t my fault, it was…”

“The Snowman, I know, I know.” Aziraphale paused, offering him a gentle nod of solidarity, followed by a sweet kiss pressed to his forehead. “You’ve got to get control over yourself, my love. They’re going to know something’s up. There are only so many different ways I can say you’re tired before they start to suspect something.”

“I _am_ tired. And I’m hungry. Probably thirsty as well. Do you know that dehydration can lower the human focus by up to fifty percent?”

Aziraphale nodded enthusiastically, dutifully retrieving a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water. “I didn’t know that, _very_ interesting. Now, drink up. Big night ahead of us. Suspicions to thwart and all that.”

By the time Crowley had finished munching his way through the packet of crisps Aziraphale had found in the bread bin, the demon had all but stopped crying, with only the odd solitary tear escaping that the angel was sure he could blame on a troublesome eyelash if the need for an explanation arose. Then Luci’s laugh echoed around the flat, filling the kitchen and leaving Crowley’s bottom lip quivering adorably.

“No.” Aziraphale warned, shaking his head. “No, no, no. You can hold it together, I know you can. As soon as they’ve gone you can cry on me for the next fortnight, whatever you want.”

“I just can’t believe they’re here.” Crowley swallowed deeply, stretching his eyes as wide as he could in a vain attempt to banish his tears.

“Of course they’re here, we invited them.”

“After all this time, angel. Raphael and Lucifer, the way they always…”

Aziraphale lowered his voice, wishing it hadn’t come out as quite as much of a hiss but letting it hang there all the same. Tough love, perhaps, might do the job. “It’s _not_ Raphael and Lucifer standing out there, Crowley. Just like Anthony and Zira aren’t _us_ , remember? And that’s who we’re doing this for, isn’t it? What’s the number one rule?”

Crowley looked up at him in confusion, then straightened himself up, looking hopelessly around as if the only thing he was ready for was a good, long sleep. Eventually he shrugged, nodding towards the sad little fern that sat atop the fridge. “Always water from below?”

“The little ones! We leave the little ones’ lives as we found them.”

“Little ones? Steady on, you’ve only just got back together.” The kitchen door creaked open then and Mick appeared behind them, one eyebrow raised as he caught the tail end of their hushed conversation. “I, er, just came to get some ice.”

“Old Mick! I thought I’d never-” Crowley stopped, clearing his throat as he glanced at Aziraphale. “I mean, thanks for coming. Mate.”

“Again with the _old_. Knock it off, you cheeky git. Come here.” As Mick enveloped the demon in a bear hug, Aziraphale took the opportunity to give Crowley a nod of approval before he disappeared back into the living room to find the final guests had arrived and the party was well and truly about to begin.

“Here he is!” Dan cried, raising a pizza slice in Aziraphale’s direction as if it was a champagne flute. A glob of melted cheese bungeed from the tip of the pizza and the angel felt his stomach lurch at the prospect of a second meal in as many hours.

Aziraphale settled himself down on the sofa next to Dan, smiling at the singer as shyly as if it was the first time they had met, which, of course, it was. As far as Aziraphale was concerned, at least. He was three bites into a hastily retrieved slice of pizza before he realised Dan wasn’t alone on the sofa and was flanked by Clara and Bella, the two girls Zira had invited on a whim, partially to make up the numbers on his side.

“Ladies.” Aziraphale nodded at the girls, dressed in their customary identical black ensembles. Of course, up close their outfits held the usual minuscule differences, as if they were desperate to assert themselves as two independent people but didn’t quite have the confidence to break from the safety blanket of a mirror image.

“Hi Zira, oh my god, we were so excited to get your message, weren’t we, Bella?” Clara shifted forward on the sofa, knees pressed against the edge of the coffee table as she looked past Bella and Dan to wave excitedly at Aziraphale. Well, as easily as one can wave with a glass in one hand and pizza in the other. “How are you? We missed you at the gig. Crowley said you were okay but…”

She trailed off, leaving the unspoken question in the air ready for Bella to pick up, right on cue. The second girl nodded sombrely, shooting a quick glance at Dan before mentally giving him the green light to be privy to their conversation. “We thought you two might have, you know, split. We were devastated, weren’t we, Clara?”

“Right.” As if the conversation was a tennis rally played solely on one half of the court, Clara jumped back in. “We were devastated. I said to you, didn’t I, Bella, we can’t let the Den’s power couple go under, can we? We were going to stage an intervention if you weren’t at the next gig.”

“Oh, it was nothing really. Just a tiff.” Aziraphale shrugged, trying to channel every inch of the bookseller’s twitchy energy. He fiddled with his hands, then wondered if perhaps it was too theatrical, might read as performative, so opted to reach for a second slice of pizza. He looked up then, found both girls watching him with rapt focus, noticed even Dan was hanging on his every word, keen to hear his side of the story. _I could get used to this_ , the angel thought. After so many years of flying under the radar, of keeping even the smallest anecdotes inside, what a treat it was to be _encouraged_ to share. He leaned forward conspiratorially, looking towards the open kitchen door, to where Crowley was still ensconced inside. “You know how musicians can be.”

Aziraphale’s audience, which amounted to precisely three people, nodded passionately, Dan letting out a little laugh of self-deprecation, as if he knew only too well how _musicians can be_.

“Honestly, mate, he was gutted. He really was. The moping. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

He felt a little flare of happiness for Zira, wondering if he would ever get an opportunity to tell the bookseller how heavily the temporary break up had weighed on the dog walker. How bizarre it was, how miraculous, to care so strongly for somebody he had only ever spoken to as if through a veil, somebody who didn’t even know he existed, who thought him nothing more than a conscience, a part of their own mind.

“We said that, didn’t we, Clara? We said you two would be lost without each other.”

In response, Clara nodded wisely as she swallowed a gulp of whatever concoction was lurking in her glass. Aziraphale glanced down at the drink, wondering if he should take over role of barman, if only to pep up the measures a little. _No single measures in this household,_ he thought to himself. “Can I get anyone a refill?”

“Tiger, thanks, mate.” Dan nodded, swinging an empty beer bottle loosely between his index finger and thumb.

No sooner had Aziraphale excused himself from the group on the sofa than he heard somebody calling his name. He turned to find Lily waving him over, midnight blue lipstick dotted with pinpricks of silver glitter as if her mouth was the night sky itself.

“Zira, we need you. Settle a debate, will you?”

As Aziraphale bustled over, swallowing deeply as he gathered the courage to face Crowley’s two bandmates he’d been most nervous to be scrutinised by, Sammy rolled his eyes, wrapping one hand firmly around the aux cable that was connected to Lily’s phone. He gave it a little tug to absolutely no avail whatsoever. “I’m just saying, Lil, you can be a bit of a dic-”

“Oh, _charming_. You hear this, Zira? Look at him. Have you ever seen a more furious postman in your life?” Lily sat back on her heels, one hand gripping her phone and the other reaching out to gesture towards Sammy who, Aziraphale had to concede, was doing a particularly stand up impression of the world’s angriest postman. Although, given that he had met precisely one postman in his life, it wasn’t a crowded field of competition.

“Dic _tator_ , if you’ll ever let me finish a sentence. I don’t know why you always get to control the music, that’s all. I’ve actually got a playlist I’d really like to…”

“No one wants to hear your misery music, Sammy. They won’t like it.”

“No one’s ever had the _chance_ to know if they like it, _Lily_ , because you’re an aux hog.”

“I will give you kudos for that niche insult, postman, but that’s as generous as I can be without feeling nauseous.”

As if they had only just remembered he was there, the two of them turned back to Aziraphale. It was Sammy who spoke first. “I bet the jean genie lets you have a go on the…”

“ _Sammy!_ You can’t say that! He’s not a heathen like the rest of us.”

Sammy sighed. It was a laboured sound, as if it could barely contain all of the long-suffering frustration seeping from the postman’s very soul. “I was going to say, if you’re quite finished, that I bet Crowley lets him have a go on the aux cable. Also, I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that this one isn’t a heathen-in-training. The new year’s day hickey display, lest we forget.”

“Gone but not forgotten.” Lily nodded reverently. “Anyway, the hubbies are back together and balance has been restored to the universe. Are you on your way to the bar? Grab us a drink, will you?”

“What can I get you?” Aziraphale stopped a mere heartbeat before tacking on a customary _my good woman_ , which he was concerned might read as patronising enough to arouse suspicion. “Wine? I think we have a bottle of white somewhere.”

“White wine, this one?” Sammy barked out a laugh, extending his little finger as he adopted the plummiest accent in his arsenal. “Lillian, would you like a glass of white wine? Zira, mate, give her a shot of everything in a pint glass and be done with it.”

“Actually, Zira, white wine would be lovely, thank you.” Lily smiled warmly at Aziraphale, before giving Sammy a pointed look. “And this angry little boy will have a juice, won’t you? He’ll take it in his highchair.”

Ever since Zira had first met the acquaintance of Crowley’s bandmates and Aziraphale had watched the way they openly berated each other at every available opportunity, he’d begun to understand that, in some circles, merciless insults were something of their own complex love language. While he and Crowley had settled into their default safe space of casual bickering near enough as soon as they’d laid eyes on each other, Lucifer and the Guys took things to a whole new level. As he squeezed past Raphael, Luci, and Mick, he made a mental note to give it a try himself. Perhaps, he reasoned, it might help make the humans feel comfortable around him.

“Oh, Zira, darling, pour us a whisky and coke, will you?” Luci asked, leaning across Raphael to pass Aziraphale their glass.

The angel took it, smiling to himself as he mused the ease with which Luci had asked for the refill, as if they truly believed it was their old friend Zira standing there, not the very soul who had brought them into existence in that universe. He had become rather good at hiding in plain sight over the years, he reasoned, perhaps all those years of running weren’t entirely wasted.

Playing at being the resident barman had been one of the more ingenious ideas he’d had that day, Aziraphale decided, after a full twenty minutes had passed without any palpitations of fear that he was about to blow their cover. After mixing Luci a whisky and coke that they had tasted, then promptly topped up with another generous glug of alcohol, Aziraphale realised he might have been going a bit light on the alcohol front. And so, after obediently delivering Dan’s beer and Lily’s wine, he turned his attention to mixing drinks for himself and Crowley. Just a little something to take the edge of.

As if the siren song of alcohol had summoned him, Crowley took that moment to tiptoe out of the kitchen, eyes red-rimmed but mercifully dry. Aziraphale watched his gaze flick from person to person, nerves weighing down the corners of his lips until he spotted the angel and made a beeline for him. At least, it would have been a beeline, if he hadn’t been pulled to and fro from group to group on his way to the bar. It was Lily Aziraphale had been most worried about, for both of them, given that indulging in chaotic bluntness seemed to be her favourite pastime. For a moment Aziraphale saw her watching Crowley carefully, looking first at his hair and then at his face, as if she was trying to identify exactly what it was that seemed so unfamiliar. And then the demon cracked a joke at poor Sammy’s expense and all of the heavy tension hanging in the air dissipated.

“Are you feeling better after the crisps?” Aziraphale asked, dropping his voice as Crowley joined him, the demon sliding one hand into his back pocket, as if entirely too much time had gone by without the two of them touching in some way.

“Much.” Crowley nodded, leaning in close. “Lily’s a sharp one, isn’t she? Had to slag off Sammy’s shoes to deflect attention.”

“What’s wrong with his shoes?” The angel craned his neck to try and get a better look at the postman’s feet.

“Oh, nothing. First thing that came to mind. Didn’t realise all I had to to blend in was be mildly demonic to the people I’m supposed to love. Easy.”

“Mmm, comes rather naturally, doesn’t it?”

“Playing to my strengths, angel.” He nodded towards the empty glass in Aziraphale’s hand. “What are you making me?”

The angel thought for a moment, surveying the myriad bottles that were now stacked up next to the glasses. Eventually, an idea came to him. “Pirate mimosa.”

Crowley sighed, though whether the sound was filled with longing or weariness Aziraphale couldn’t be sure. “Tell me, angel, what exactly goes into a pirate mimosa?”

Aziraphale added a splash of juice to an empty pint glass, then filled it almost to the brim with the Prosecco they’d found in the fridge during their panicked cleaning session earlier. He shrugged, passing it to Crowley. “Drink up.”

“This is just fizzy wine with unspecified tropical juice. It’s not even a mimosa, let alone a pirate mimosa, which I’m pretty sure you just made up.”

“Oh, forgot.” Aziraphale held up a hand in apology, then took the glass from Crowley and downed two gulps of the liquid, topping it up with a liberal serving of spiced rum. “There. Pirate mimosa.”

Crowley looked down at the concoction, watching as the dark rum seeped through the drink, turning it an attractive shade of dull brown. “Delicious.”

As the demon politely sipped at the drink, turning away to grimace after every mouthful in a vain attempt to spare Aziraphale’s feelings, the angel mixed himself a similar drink with an extra few shots of rum. _Just to settle my nerves_ , he promised. He took a sip, felt himself recoil with a shudder at the taste, which wasn’t a world away from artificially sweetened paint stripper. Not that he’d ever imbibed paint stripper but even so. When he looked up, Crowley was watching him with an amused smile on his face.

“Now who’s crying?” the demon asked, reaching out to wipe a tear from the corner of the angel’s eye.

“It is a bit strong, isn’t it?” Aziraphale coughed, taking another sip.

“Eye-watering, some might say.”

“Drink your drink. It’s what humans do, drink horrible drinks. Waste not, want not. We’re on a budget now.”

“We need to pace ourselves,” Crowley warned, in a rare display of self-restraint. Though, perhaps, Aziraphale wondered, that had more to do with the fact he seemed to need a moment or two to steel himself before each mouthful. _Every barman has to start somewhere_ , the angel said to himself.

“Pace ourselves. Yes. Very sensible.”

“That was my nickname down in hell, did you know that? Sensible Crowley.”

Aziraphale turned to look at him, barely fathoming the notion that there was something of Crowley’s old life he hadn’t been privy to. “I thought it was Bastard Crowley.”

“Oh, yes, you’re right. So it was. Tonight, though, tonight it’s time to say hello to Sensible Crowley. And Sensible Aziraphale. That’s what they’ll call us.”

“Who’s _they_?”

“I don’t know, just the unspecified _them_ , you know? That’s what people say, isn’t it? Anyway, drink up, angel. But slowly. Sensibly.”

***

**One Hour Later.**

“I love this song!” Aziraphale screeched, slopping his fresh pirate mimosa down his wrist, a few stray droplets cascading down to the thigh of Crowley’s jeans. The angel whooped, pawing at the denim and walking his fingers inward until they were groping for the demon’s inner thigh.

“You don’t _know_ this song.” Crowley cackled, closing his hand over Aziraphale’s and sliding it up a few inches for good measure. “You’ve always been a damned tease, angel.”

Aziraphale laughed, dancing away from the demon and letting himself get pulled back a second later. As Crowley leaned down to press a kiss to his jaw, the angel’s eyes snapped open, as if something had only just dawned on him. “Less of the _damned_ , thank you very much. There’s only space for one demon in this relationship.”

“Mmm.” Crowley stumbled back a pace, brandished his pint glass as if he was about to make a toast. He appeared to think better of it, thought it infinitely more _sensible_ to pogo up and down on the spot as the music thudded around them. “You know what they say about you in hell? Angel in the streets…”

“Yes, very good.”

“…Demon in the sheets.”

“Excuse me?” Aziraphale’s jaw dropped open. “ _Who_ says that?”

“Well, me.” Crowley laughed, taking the angel’s hand and twirling him wholly out of time with the music. “Me, myself, and I. That’s three. What? It’s true. Absolutely _sinful_. Come here, I’ve got a wile for you to thwart.”

“Oh, good.” Lily raised an eyebrow from her vantage point on the sofa. On either side of her, Dan and Sammy nodded resignedly. Though their hosts’ voices were drowned out by the music they had insisted needed to be cranked up to full volume post haste, the sentiment behind their words was abundantly clear to every guest in the room. “We’ve reached the point of the evening where we need a spray bottle to get them apart. They’re an hour ahead of schedule. Must be a full moon.”

“Is it me or are they…” Dan trailed off, waving a hand in Crowley and Aziraphale’s direction, squinting a little through his almost-drunken haze as he tried to ascertain which one of the two was holding the other up, or if it was a mutual effort.

“Even more all over the bloody place, and each other, than usual? No, mate, it’s not just you.” Sammy looked back at the couple, felt his lip quiver as he bit back a laugh. “What are they _doing_?”

“I think-” Lily paused, leaning forward for a closer look at the angel and demon, who might have been limbering up for some sort of celestial ritual, or might simply have been enjoying her playlist. “I think they’re dancing.”

“Come on, guys!” Crowley called out to them, dancing over towards the sofa with all the grace and rhythm of a drunken uncle at a wedding. “Ha, guys! Guys! Lucifer and the… oh!”

The demon fell silent, hands clapped dramatically to his cheeks as he stared from his bandmates to Luci, who was perched atop the sideboard, legs swinging back and forth as they poured Raphael a fresh drink. He opened his mouth to shout again, then brought one fist to his lips, shaking his head as if he was summoning up all of the willpower at his disposal to keep from crying.

“No!” Aziraphale wailed, had grown all too used to the warning signs as the evening had progressed. He rushed towards the demon, shoe catching on absolutely nothing at all and sending him staggering into the arm of the sofa, almost depositing the rest of his pirate mimosa in Dan’s lap. “My love, no more tears. It’s just the band, isn’t it? You’re just excited to see them.”

It was touch and go for a moment, but then Crowley swallowed the ball of emotion in his throat and promptly dissolved into hysterical laughter, waving his glass first in the direction of Lily and then over towards Luci. “ _Lucifer_ and the Guys, all in one place, at last!”

“Yes.” Lily nodded slowly, speechless, for once. She reached out and patted Crowley on the hand as he careened past her with Aziraphale in tow.

“Sorry,” the angel bumbled, after he smashed into the dining table, barely able to register whether the victim of his drunken impression of a bulldozer was human or furniture.

“He just apologised to a chair,” Sammy said plainly, as if no further comment was required but he just needed to know the others had seen the spectacle.

“Why are we the only ones staggering?” Crowley asked, arms snaking around the angel’s waist as if he thought _he_ was the responsible one.

“It’s these drinks, Crowley.” Aziraphale paused to guzzle the rest of his drink, vaguely aware that he had stopped grimacing after every mouthful somewhere around the third glass. “Why are they so strong?”

“Wily barman. Keeps giving me the eye. Think he wants to take me to bed.”

“ _What?_ ” Aziraphale stared at Crowley in horror. Crowley stared back, waiting for the penny to drop. A moment later, it did. “Oh, well then. Yes, he rather does. Time to wrap things up here, I think. Everyone’s had a jolly old time. Went smoother than…cotton.”

“Silk.” Crowley corrected him, then looked down at his own feet, if only to keep himself tethered to reality. “You know, angel, something tells me celestial corporations are made of sterner stuff than these human bodies. Can’t handle their drinks, humans, can they?”

And then, before either angel or demon had a chance to tell their guests that they were very sorry but it was well past both of their bedtimes and so, regretfully, they would have to ask them to get a wiggle on and vacate the premises, Sammy’s voice cut across the room, from where he had made a very pivotal discovery.

“Is this _absinthe_? You are _such_ a pretentious wanker.”

Crowley and Aziraphale looked hazily across to find the postman gripping the neck of the bottle of green liquid, sloshing it around as he waved it in their direction.

“I’ll fetch the sugar, shall I?” Raphael asked, already moving towards the kitchen as if a group bonding session of drinking absinthe was a foregone conclusion.

“Spoons, darling!” Luci called after him, hand cupped to their mouth like a makeshift megaphone.

“We’ll just do the one,” Aziraphale whispered, fingers curling around the edge of Crowley’s back pocket. “And then we’ll wrap things up, shall we?”

“Absolutely.” Crowley nodded, eyes trained on the angel’s as Raphael squeezed past them with a bag of sugar cubes in one hand and a fistful of spoons in another. “Just one and then it’s me, you, and the mattress.”

***

**Nineteen Minutes Later.**

“Down it! Down it!”

As the group descended into mismatched clapping to accompany their maniacal chanting, Luci stood in the middle of the circle and polished off their hefty measure of the green fairy in one neat glug. Easy.

“Be an angel, pour us another.” They deposited the empty cup in Raphael’s hand, then leaned in for an unhurried kiss, as if the absinthe had suddenly flared up and begun to take effect.

“Aniseedy.” Raphael laughed, one arm slung around Luci’s waist as the two of them busied themselves preparing a fresh drink for everybody in the group, after Lily had made them all promise they’d have at least one round in tandem. For the memories, apparently.

Making short enough work of preparing the drinks that the unspoken group consensus was _of course they know how to mix absinthe without resorting to Google_ , Raphael and Luci passed the glasses around after doing very complex things with teaspoons, sugar cubes and, to Aziraphale's alarm, fire.

“Time for a toast?” Luci asked, raising their glass. “To our two lovesick puppies, may your hearts always be full and your bed always be warm.”

“To the hubbies!” Lily cried, as the group raised their cups in response.

Crowley looked across at Aziraphale, taking his second taste of the elusive drink as the angel nodded at him, miming the action of ticking the very last thing off of their collective bucket list, before knocking back his own drink. Better late than never.

And then, through his blurred vision, Crowley heard Mick’s gruff voice lightened with friendly teasing, as a tear slipped from his eye and streaked slowly, dramatically down his cheek at the sound of the well wishes from humans who knew nothing of their story, of their millennia long fight to be together with full hearts and a warm bed.

“Oh, look out, someone get the tissues, he’s gone again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy hump day angels and demons! How has your week been so far?
> 
> I hope you enjoyed today's chapter - the bucket list is finally complete! What chaos might come after group absinthe drinking, I wonder?
> 
> The next couple of publication dates are:
> 
> Friday 17th: The first chapter of a newww (but set in the IY universe, as always) historical short story  
> Wednesday 22nd: Chapter four
> 
> I also posted the next chapter of Raphael's story this weekend, so in case you missed it you can catch up here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20401738/chapters/52834366
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely, funny comments on these last couple of chapters - I'm excited to sit down and reply to them all at the weekend when I have a break from work, but please know how much they've all made my day! <3


	4. Drunk in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s the tipping point, do you think?” Luci mused, biting back as a laugh as if they were thoroughly enjoying the chaos of that most unexpectedly lively evening.

**March. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

An hour had ticked by since the first drop of absinthe had passed Aziraphale’s lips and he had acquired quite the taste for the drink. As the tang of aniseed on his tongue increased, his inhibitions plummeted in the opposite direction and, as was customary, the yin yang balance of his and Crowley’s roles began to shift, leaving the demon sitting in the seat of responsible party for the time being. A terrifying notion indeed.

Aziraphale was used to watching Crowley from a distance. It had often been the only way he could. Stolen glances, stolen moments, and then stolen nights. Always stolen. Borrowed time, as if one day being cornered into paying back the debt of that happiness was the inevitable price to pay for love.

It had been a long lifetime of watching each other from a distance, eyes following the other’s path across a room, gaze meeting and held for a moment, or two, or three, until Aziraphale would lose his nerve and look away.

A long-held habit took more than mere hours of freedom to shake loose, and Aziraphale had found himself slip back into that old routine of quietly watching Crowley’s every move, of allowing himself the luxury of his gaze roaming slowly over the outline of the demon’s face, his lips, his body. That night, as they stood amongst their most trusted confidantes, Aziraphale was deep in slurred conversation with Lily and Mick when he realised he had retreated back to that unwelcome comfort zone, watching Crowley over the rim of his glass as the demon swayed between Raphael and Luci, rapt in the midst of whatever topic was at hand.

Crowley’s stance shifted in a way that was imperceptible to every being at the party, besides one. There was a tilt of his hip, one foot sliding forward just so, and then he cocked his head to the side and met Aziraphale’s eyes across the room. A smile. So slow and intentional it was as if a spotlight beamed down on them both, everything else fading away in the darkness. Aziraphale felt that familiar thud of panic in his chest, a millennia old shot of adrenaline to spur him into action, and shook his head in response, a physical reminder to his soul that he didn’t have to love through subtleties any longer. He was free, at last, to love with all the fervour of a hurricane sweeping through country and town and city alike, leaving chaos in its wake, with only the heartbeat of _onward, onward, onward to him_ pounding in its chest.

“Can’t look away, can you?” Raphael laughed, clapping a hand on Crowley’s shoulder as he followed the demon’s eye-line to find it settled on the angel, who was looking back with equal devotion. As far as the partygoers were concerned it was a look of newly-blossomed love, the type of all-encompassing blinkered affection that could only accompany a honeymoon period, something so intense it could never hold true over the years, or even the months, a solar flare that would burn itself out and give way to a more understated devotion, that had to, in the end.

Of course, what Raphael and the other partygoers didn’t know was that they stood in the presence of two beings for whom the human lifespan was merely a blink, something that measured devotion in decades, not millennia. The angel and demon who stood before them had lived a love story in reverse, had crested the peaks and troughs of a lifetime of love, had faced breaking point after breaking point, and even stared the finality of death in the face before they had been granted the luxury of something as light and carefree as a honeymoon period. And now they had it, after six thousand years of waiting, it was something they had no intention of letting go of.

It was the first time, Crowley realised, that to be caught looking at Aziraphale with equal measures of love and desire in his eyes wasn’t danger. When Raphael smiled at him as if he was happy, proud even, to see the two of them so in love, the demon felt a rush of something that had laid dormant in him for so many thousands of years. It was, he understood, something close to what he had felt in the early days, the days _before_. Family. That was the closest word he could use to describe it. He felt as though he was standing amongst the safe, soft blanket of family and there, in the centre of it all, was Aziraphale. Love was the thread that tied it all together, what he felt in that moment for everybody standing in that room with them. A different kind of love, perhaps, but love all the same. It still held the same building blocks it always had: patience, rebellion, hope, and kindness. It was what had been missing since he fell, since the little family he had carved out in heaven had been snatched away as he tumbled into the endless dark. It was what had been missing from that six thousand year struggle on Earth. He had had flashes of it, yes, in the kindred spirits he had met along the way. But human life was so…fragile, so fleeting. Now though, in the place where they no longer needed to hide, perhaps a family was the last missing piece of the puzzle.

Lost, momentarily, to notions of trust and family that had been quietly forming in his mind, Crowley found his thoughts pulled back to Aziraphale at the precise moment the angel had crossed the room to reach for the half empty bottle of absinthe. There was a look of steely determination on his face as he took a deep swig that left Crowley racing towards him, ready to leap into the role of responsible party and put a stop to whatever required such intense alcoholic courage.

“Don’t do it, angel,” he said, dropping his voice as he gently attempted to wrestle the bottle from Aziraphale’s grip. Aziraphale’s iron grip, as it turned out. “Aziraphale, give that to me.”

“No,” the angel slurred, raising the bottle to his lips to guzzle another mouthful of the elusive green liquid. He slammed the bottle down onto the sideboard, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in a motion so messy and undignified that it was testament to the angel’s blood alcohol level. “I’m doing it, Crowley, it needs to be done. I’m telling them. It’s the only way.”

Crowley swallowed a gulp of fear. Sometimes, he reasoned, Aziraphale with a plan was just as terrifying as Aziraphale with no plan whatsoever. It might take him a while to formulate a plan of action but once he had, there was no convincing him to deviate from it. It was best, Crowley had learned, to let him get on with it and start thinking of the best route of escape. Although, that was far easier done prior to a night of wine and whisky and pirate mimosas. And absinthe.

“Whatever you say,” he conceded, finally, picking up the bottle to suck in one last mouthful of the drink. It wasn’t even good, a spicy, medicinal taste that left a heat on his tongue long after he had swallowed. Still, it did leave laughter on the tip of his tongue too, kicked that burning desire for Aziraphale up a notch, something he hadn’t thought was possible. _Get it over with, and then I’m going to get you alone. Finally._

Aziraphale laid a hand on Crowley’s forearm, gave him a wink that was far more troubling than reassuring, then staggered forward a pace, taking the absinthe bottle and flicking a fingernail against it, leaving nothing but a dull tap echoing quietly beneath the buzz of drunken chatter in the room. When the sound attracted no attention whatsoever, the angel raised his voice. “Friends, we have something we need to tell you. I’m afraid we haven’t been quite honest with you. You see, there’s a reason we’ve gathered you all here tonight.”

Their friends turned, one by one, eyeing the couple with interest that grew, slowly, into excitement as various pennies began to drop, albeit incorrectly.

“Oh my god.” Lily clapped both hands to her cheeks. “You’re getting married! Ha, Sammy, pay up!”

“Oh, _oh_ , no I know what this is. _Little ones._ ” Mick took a pace back, beaming at the group as he nodded towards Crowley and Aziraphale, recalling the conversation he had walked in on earlier that evening. “Congratulations to you both, will we be hearing the pitter patter of little…”

“For Somebody’s sake,” Crowley hissed, looking accusingly at Aziraphale, who shrugged back as if he couldn’t fathom how they had all got his announcement so wildly off-base. The demon looked back at the group, sending a silent apology to the sleeping human in the back of his mind who had no idea of the chaos he was going to step back into. “We’re not getting married, and we’re not…acquiring offspring. Angel, I think you should explain what you meant. Nice and accurately.”

“Ha!” Aziraphale jabbed a finger against Crowley’s chest. “Good one. You’re so sharp, Crowley, do you know that? You’re so sharp. So funny. My funny, funny demon.”

“Yes, all that wit, it’s been said.” Crowley leaned into him, lips grazing the angel’s ear. “What are you doing?”

“I’m saving the world,” Aziraphale explained patiently, lips lifting into a smile. “I’ve figured it all out, Crowley. It was the absinthe. Clarity. There’s clarity in inebriation.”

“There is not, and has never been, clarity in inebriation.”

“We just need a helping hand. What did you tell me about learning to trust people?” he whispered, before turning back to the group and raising his voice beyond acceptable levels for the early hours of the morning in a crowded block of flats with poor sound insulation. “Our story begins six thousand years ago…”

 _He’s not_ , Crowley thought, horror etching itself on his face as he watched Aziraphale do the unthinkable and…tell the truth. _What is he doing? How could he… why? What is he…_

“And what was I supposed to do? She was expecting, rather a quick turnaround all things considered but such is life, and there was going to be…weather, you know? How could I just leave them to face the wilds without any way to protect themselves? Anyway, that’s not important, not really. It’s what happened next that really set the wheels of this whole…shebang, in motion…”

Aziraphale regaled Anthony and Zira’s friends with the sweeping tale of dedication and forbidden love, of the Earth’s history and the twin roles an angel and a demon had played across the eons, how they had loved each other from afar, and then from a distance, and then so intimately that not even the promise of death could tear them asunder. Next to him, Crowley stared in terrified silence, swigging a mouthful of whatever alcohol was in reaching distance whenever the angel reached a particularly harrowing plot point.

“…And then, you see, we couldn’t just give up, could we? Not after how far we’d come…”

As Aziraphale flung his arms wide in his very best impression of Satan clawing his way up to the Earth, Crowley scanned the faces in the crowd for Raphael’s, looked for a flicker of recognition. He knew it was pointless, knew that the man standing in front of him wasn’t the archangel who might have been looking down that day in Tadfield when the world failed to end.

“…Of course, he’s better than any of them in heaven ever have been, present company aside, of course, Raphael. He’s always been so much better than that place. But what choice did we have? A chance to be together? We had to try.”

As Raphael perked up at the sound of his name, he shot a glance across at Crowley, as if he might be able to provide any sort of rational explanation. The demon shrugged, then nodded, then shook his head. _Cover all bases_ , he thought, taking another swig from the bottle as he unbuttoned the next button of his shirt. It was so hot. Or was that the fear sweats Anthony spent so much time lamenting?

“…It all happened so… Oh, Crowley, getting undressed already? We have _company_. No? I see. Where was I?” Aziraphale paused, tapping his chin. “Ah, yes. It all happened so fast, I just…I just thought of love, I thought of everything that had ever mattered. Everything I had ever cared about. And then we were here. Sort of. Your friends, your sweet friends, they’re…let’s say they’re sleeping and we will keep them safe from the world, from up there, from everything. So, you see, as our best friends from the old world and the new world, we need your help, we need to get back, and we need to make this place safe for all of you.”

Aziraphale finished his monologue with a slow blink, as if he had only just truly understood the depths of what he had shared, as if until that moment he had thought the whole performance had been for an empty room.

There was silence. Dreadful, enduring silence.

 _Angel, what have you done?_ Crowley looked at Aziraphale in dismay as the angel looked back in hazy confusion, as if he couldn’t quite fathom the demon’s unenthusiastic feedback.

A clap punctuated the silence. Two claps, really, but given that the sound came from Clara and Bella’s palms it rang out as a single entity.

Then a spluttered laugh fell from Lily’s lips as she raised her glass in Aziraphale’s direction. “Brilliant, Zira. Tell us another one, go on.”

“Yes, very…creative, isn’t he?” Crowley nodded emphatically, reaching around to squeeze Aziraphale’s shoulders as if he was nothing but wholly supportive of his drunken little storyteller. “Always telling him he should write some of those tales down. Have a word, will you, Lily?”

Aziraphale looked around at the group, bewildered, as they descended into chatter about his _story_ , agreeing unanimously that the part where Raphael existed as a softly-spoken heavenly entity needed a little bit of work if it was to reflect _real life_.

“No!” Aziraphale cried, stumbling forward a pace and waving an accusatory finger at nobody in particular. “You need to listen to me! I brought all of my favourite things… Sushi and…and crepes. Haven’t you wondered why there are so many crepe stands in London? Nobody needs a crepe stand on every street corner, it’s preposterous!”

Next to him, Crowley raised an eyebrow as if he was both indignant and vindicated in equal measure.

“And…have any of you tried to visit…I don’t know, where haven’t I been? Crowley, where did I never get to? What’s the name of that… Crowley, please, what’s that little island I always wanted to go to?”

“Vanuatu. And it’s me that always wanted to get there but never managed it, angel, not you. You spent loads of time there, remember? Why they’re all so happy. Were so happy. Were? No, are. Not the End of Days just yet, is it? Or is it? Is there going to be a formal announcement? Probably. That smug bastard loves to prance about on that bloody stage, doesn’t he? Honestly, when I get my hands on…” Crowley trailed off, looked at the group of mystified faces staring back at him and gestured hastily to Aziraphale. “Back to you.”

Aziraphale took another step forward, reaching out to touch Raphael’s face as if he was the most miraculous thing he’d ever seen. When the angel spoke his voice was slurred but incredibly earnest, as though he might take inspiration from Crowley and break down into tears at any time. “You were there…” He turned his attention to Mick after that, reaching for his salt and pepper hair and twisting it lovingly in his fingers. “And you were there…”

Crowley raced towards him then, scooping both hands under Aziraphale’s armpits and helping him climb to his feet after the angel had sunk to his knees in a clunking motion of drunken reverence. “Come on, Dorothy, let’s get you some water.”

“Oh, very good, Crowley. You’re on a roll tonight. Dorothy, indeed. We're off to murder the wizard, eh? The purple-eyed bastard of Oz."

As the couple staggered off into the kitchen, laughing loudly about a joke only the two of them understood, the rest of the party watched them leave in shocked confusion.

“Do you think they’re okay?” Luci asked finally, looking back to Raphael with an amused smile on their face. From what they knew of Crowley this was entirely normal behaviour but to see _Zira_ so utterly out of control, even after he’d polished off a pizza and a half to line his stomach, that was a brand new experience. They heard raucous laughter siren out from the kitchen followed by suspicious silence and then, a moment later, a low moan that sounded anything but angelic. Luci raised an eyebrow and turned their attention back to their drink, while Dan tactfully fiddled with the volume on the speakers until the music rose by enough decibels to keep them blissfully ignorant about what might be going on in the next room.

Safely hidden in the kitchen, an angel and a demon had made it to the sink but were not, by any stretch of the imagination, getting the water they had gone to retrieve.

“Can we ask them to go home yet?” Aziraphale whined, letting his eyes flutter closed as Crowley’s lips found his neck, the demon’s teeth scraping against the soft skin he found there. “I mean it, I want you to myself. It’s the thrill of confession, Crowley. It’s so _liberating_.”

“Spoken like a true believer. You told them _everything,_ you naive, beautiful fool. I thought we were supposed to be laying low,” Crowley murmured, hands sliding up under the angel’s shirt, nails gently raking across the warm skin of his stomach until Aziraphale sucked in a mouthful of air in frustration.

“Oh yes, well, that’s going swimmingly, isn’t it?” He was silenced with a kiss, tasted the aniseed on the demon’s tongue and let himself be walked backwards until his back hit the edge of the sink and there was nothing but the gratifying weight of Crowley’s hips rolling tantalisingly slowly against his.

 _This is how I ought to finally go_ , Aziraphale thought to himself, feeling Crowley’s hand under his knee, pulling one leg up until it was wrapped behind the demon’s waist, pulling them closer together. He ran one finger along the inside of the Crowley’s waistband, bit down on the demon’s lip as he moaned into his mouth. _May the Almighty smite me where I stand for I am truly about to sin against this kitchen sink._

“Oh, for the love of… Don’t mind me, I just came in to get more hummus.” Raphael stood next to the fridge, one hand on his hip in mock-annoyance, betrayed by the smile on his face. “Last time I saw you it was all lingering looks and chaste hand holding and now it’s…dry humping against the sink. What’s got into you two tonight?”

Crowley broke away from Aziraphale for the briefest of moments, sighing at the second interruption of the evening. He pulled back for long enough to utter two words before he turned his attention back to the angel and laughed against his lips. “It’s ineffable.”

Raphael rolled his eyes, smiling affectionately and kicking the fridge door closed as he carried a teetering stack of hummus tubs back into the living room. “In their own bloody world.”

***

**Twenty Six Minutes Later.**

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered, fingers pressed to Crowley’s cheekbones as he stretched up for a kiss, one laced with all the tenderness befitting eternal, unstoppable love.

“We came back to each other, angel.” The demon broke contact with the angel for long enough to smile, then dipped his head for another kiss, one hand stroking lazily down the length of Aziraphale’s forearm until he reached his hand, linking their fingers together as he pressed the angel’s arm back against the sofa cushion. “We always do. Every time.”

Aziraphale sighed contentedly, as if he didn’t have a single care in the world. Either of them. Both of which they were supposed to be saving. After they sobered up, of course. “And we always will. Over and over again, me and you. Whatever pulls us apart, always back together in the end.”

“It’s a good world, this.” Crowley smiled down at him, turned his head to the side to take in a glimpse of that world through the window. Granted, the view was nothing other than the night sky but the stars were shining brightly and proudly enough that it might have been the most beautiful view of all, except for the one underneath him. “You did it, angel, you made a better world.”

“For all of you. For all of you who fought for it. I’m sorry I…” The angel hesitated, heaving a deep sigh as if he was exhaling a weight he had been carrying for far too many years. When he spoke his sentences were fragments, snatched thoughts that came too quickly to articulate in his usual eloquent way, alcohol tugging at his speech until he was stuttering over the words. “I’m sorry I was too much of a coward to march with you all. Back then, I mean. Before. I believed in it, you know, what they said. What Lucifer said. I was just too afraid to follow you then.”

“It’s lucky you didn’t. You really would have followed me straight into the pits of hell.” Crowley laughed, nuzzled his cheek against the angel’s neck. “Imagine if we’d both fallen? Wouldn’t have lasted five minutes down there.”

“Excuse me, I might have thrived.” Indignant to the point of absurdity, Aziraphale let out a little huff, as if the idea that he could possibly have succumbed to hell’s darkness was insulting at best and deeply hurtful at worst.

A chuckle, as light as if those years in hell were far enough away that Crowley could find humour in the tragedy. The demon leaned in close, smile as soft as if he couldn’t fathom loving Aziraphale any more than he did in that exact drunken moment. “If you say so, my sweet angel. Now kiss me like we’ve been trapped inside ourselves for all these months.”

“We _have_ been trapped inside ourselves for all these months.”

“Exactly.” Crowley smiled, closing his eyes to meet the angel in a kiss.

Three feet in front of them, the angel and demon’s party guests were sitting in a horseshoe shape with their backs firmly directed towards the sofa, determined to remain blissfully ignorant about whatever might be going on beneath the blanket their hosts had messily draped over themselves after they staggered back in from the kitchen.

“Well, this is getting increasingly awkward, isn’t it?” Lily asked, glancing across at Mick, who gave her a nod of solidarity, a haunted look in his eye persisting after he had made the mistake of looking over his shoulder five minutes previously. As the group fell silent, Sammy handed her an almost-empty bottle of whisky, which she took a generous glug from before handing it back so it could begin its journey back through the ranks.

“Should we, er, move to a different room?” Dan asked, swallowing nervously as he considered taking a peek in the direction of the sofa, thinking better of it when Mick laid a warning hand on his forearm.

“No, son, don’t do it,” he said, grey mane bouncing as he shook his head vehemently.

“What’s the tipping point, do you think?” Luci mused, biting back as a laugh as if they were thoroughly enjoying the chaos of that most unexpectedly lively evening.

Silence, for a moment, as the group considered what exactly the tipping point might be. And then Crowley did something that left Aziraphale moaning desperately into that silence and they all exchanged a horrified look to confirm that, yes, _that_ was very much the tipping point and, _no_ , they were never going to let them forget it after they sobered up. However many days that might take.

“To the kitchen?” Raphael asked, voice frantic as he rose to his feet.

Another voice then, calling out from the tangle of limbs and hair and wet lips on the sofa. The group turned to find Crowley beaming up at them from his position atop Aziraphale, cackling as he bellowed what must have been a hilarious joke for those in the know, given the way the angel dissolved into laughter beneath him.

“To the world!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happyyyyy hump day, friendos! How are you all? Tell me of all your news! I feel like it's been ages since I published but it's only been five days so...!
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed today's chapter, it was super fun to write and the last part of the party is coming next time and includes singalongs, drunken screeching and Barnaby breaking free from his bedroom prison. My next upload dates will be:
> 
> Part 3 Chapter 5: Wednesday 29th Jan  
> Da Vinci Chapter 2: Friday 31st Jan
> 
> Speaking of which, in case you didn't see it I started posting the short story (set within the Ineffably Yours universe) which is my piece for the Good Omens Big Bang. You can read chapter one here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22283461/chapters/53217424
> 
> <3


	5. They Can't Take That Away From Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merciless insults as a complex love language, it was easy enough to get to grips with. Aziraphale nodded happily at his own success, had even gone so far as to cup his hands around his mouth to ensure everybody at the party heard him.

**March. Crowley’s Flat, London.** ****

**2.57am.**

Outside a cosy little flat in London, an exasperated neighbour was banging on Anthony’s front door. They had shown incredible patience that night. When the occupants in the flat upstairs had cranked up the music they had merely rolled their eyes and turned up the volume on their TV. When the revellers had begun shrieking about the green fairy they had treated themselves to a gentle bout of tutting and hoped they would settle down soon enough. They had relaxed, finally, when things had fallen silent for a brief period some time around one in the morning. Then a second round of shrieking had begun but still they had remained patient. After all, that sweet redhead who lived upstairs was always the first to smile and say good morning, to take in parcels and crouch down to give the dog a pat on the head.

And then the singing had begun.

No. Not singing. Wailing.

They had looked at their watch. Just shy of three in the morning. Enough was enough. And so they found themselves hammering on the door that belonged to that sweet redhead, trying to keep their rising temper at bay as the gruff roar of a mangled song blasted out from inside the flat.

No reply.

They hammered louder. With two fists that time.

It was a fruitless endeavour. There was nothing they could do to be heard over the din inside, short of locating a microphone of their own and starting a rival impromptu karaoke session in the corridor. They didn’t have a microphone to hand, however, so had to be content with giving the door a little kick of frustration and retreating downstairs to do the only thing they could think of to make themselves feel better: write a strongly worded note.

Inside the cosy little flat that was currently a very noisy little flat, the group had been doing their very best to separate Mick from his beloved sidekick: the karaoke microphone.

As he finished executing a Stevie Nicks-esque routine of twirls and his latest vocal performance came to a very whimsical end, Lily lurched forward to wrestle the microphone out of his grip while he was still riding the performance high and his guard was down.

“Finally,” she muttered to herself, bumping Mick out of the way with her hip as he staggered behind the sofa to messily pour himself (and the top of the sideboard) a drink. By the time he’d wobbled back to collapse onto the sofa and beam at the others, as if glowing praise was imminent, Lily and Sammy had taken their position in front of the group and were preparing for what they were sure would be the rendition of the night.

“Turn around, Lily,” Sammy hissed, a heartbeat after he had raised the microphone to his lips and realised Lily was standing by his side and not, as they had rehearsed countless times in the past, with her back to his.

“Oh, you want to go full choreography?” she asked, a customary eyebrow raised as she gave Sammy a quick up and down. “You’ve had, what, three drinks, are you sure you can handle it? It’s quite complicated.”

“Shut _up_. I’ve had way more than three drinks. I’ve had more drinks than you. And it’s not _complicated_. It’s just lots of…pointing and turning and…Swedish goings on.”

“ _Swedish goings on_ it took you three weeks to learn.” Lily’s final retort would have been a whisper, had she not growled her passionate defence of Abba’s dance skills directly into the microphone. As Sammy opened his mouth to reply, she held up a hand so close to his face that she could feel his angry huff graze her palm. “Postman, commence the music.”

Back to back in their customary starting position, the music burst to life, Sammy and Lily shoulder shimmied in perfect harmony as they warbled the opening lines of the song, and Anthony’s neighbours in every direction heaved identical sighs into the darkness as they pressed their pillows firmly against their ears.

“We should sing something,” Aziraphale said, swaying gently out of time with the music as he slid an arm around Crowley’s waist. The angel and demon had been forced to observe the karaoke battle from a standing position after their guests had crowded onto the sofa to get the best view. Or, unbeknownst to the two of them, to prevent further unsubtle barely-under-the-blanket activities transpiring.

“Sing?” Crowley turned to him, wrinkling his nose. He couldn’t have heard him correctly. Aziraphale was many things but an exhibitionist was not one of them. Unless he was seated in the back of a taxi and then all bets were off.

“It looks like rather a lot of fun, doesn’t it?” the angel continued, nodding enthusiastically towards Lily, who had jumped dramatically into Sammy’s arms to mark the end of the song. As the two held their position, chests heaving with the exertion of performing while under the influence, the rest of the partygoers burst into rapturous applause.

“Oh, buckle up, voice of a generation incoming.” Crowley nudged Aziraphale gently with his elbow as Luci elegantly snaked the microphone cord around their wrist as they scrolled through the makeshift karaoke player, which was really just YouTube search results on Anthony’s laptop. _Still helping us out, even when you’re temporarily relegated to the background, aren’t you, mate?_ the demon thought fondly, feeling a little twinge of guilt at how much his human counterpart would have loved the party. Perhaps, he mused, there would be a time when demon and human alike could sing absinthe-fuelled karaoke together.

“You’re holding it together remarkably well.” Aziraphale leaned a little closer, dropping his voice to ensure they couldn’t be overheard. “Have you turned a corner?”

“Turns out I was just hungry.” Crowley shrugged, nodding down at the stack of pizza boxes that were neatly piled up by the side of the coffee table. “Human corporations, you know? Can’t tolerate hunger for more than an hour without crying or shouting. Or both.”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale pursed his lips, opened his mouth a moment later to propose a quick trip to the kitchen to replenish the supply of snacks that had dwindled to a few sparse crumbs over the hours. Only that was the moment Luci purred into the microphone and every other person in the room fell silent under the inevitable spell of a perfectly husky voice singing lyrics of love and enduring devotion.

_The way you wear your hat_

_The way you sip your tea_

_The memory of all that_

_No no, they can’t take that away from me_

As Clara and Bella’s eyebrows shot up into their respective hairlines in perfect sync, Lily reached across to slap Sammy excitedly on the knee, and all he could do was nod back as they collectively stared up at Luci in awe-struck admiration. Luci, meanwhile, eyes half-closed as they lost themselves to lyrics that unknowingly transcended their mortal existence, had a whisper of a smile on their lips that was the mirror of the soft grin Raphael wore, the two of them disappearing into a secret memory of the first time they had heard that song, of everything it had come to mean to them.

“Angel.” Crowley reached for Aziraphale’s hand, gripping it tightly as he swallowed a lump in his throat. “Angel, I need a snack.”

Aziraphale sighed, following his eye line to Raphael, who was tapping out the song’s rhythm on his thighs as he mouthed the lyrics as easily as Luci was singing them, voice lazily seductive with the sort of intonation that could conjure up joy and melancholy in a single line. It was striking, the love between them, but what had struck Aziraphale since the moment they had entered the flat earlier that evening was how inclusive their love was. It was something so soaring that it invited everybody else to share it, to feel that warmth and celebrate it with them, the antithesis to his and Crowley’s forbidden, hidden love that had been relegated to the shadows for so many thousands of years. _They have their love here, at least, even if they’ll never know it,_ Aziraphale thought. _Maybe that will be us, one day, my love._ Squeezing Crowley’s hand, the angel bit his own lip to keep tears at bay. “I don’t think you’re hungry, my dear.”

“Angel,” Crowley murmured, gaze flicking from Raphael to Luci as he felt a surge of clarity and determination settle over him, as if suddenly the reason the two of them were standing in that cramped little flat had become blindingly obvious. “Can we... is there a way to... I mean, I want to find them. Lucifer. I want to bring them back together, Aziraphale. I need to know what happened to them. I need to bring them back together.”

Though he was filled with doubt and fear and disbelief that they could ever do such a thing without ending either themselves or the entire world in the process, Aziraphale nodded as he gave Crowley’s hand another squeeze. There would be time enough for practicalities in the morning. For now, the night was a celebration and he had no intention of dampening anybody’s spirit with realism. “We’ll find them, Crowley. Wherever they are, we’ll find them.”

And in that moment he allowed himself to believe that they really would find them, that one day they might watch an archangel and a lightbringer sing softly of love daring to persist beyond everything else.

_The way you sing off key_

_The way you haunt my dreams_

_No no, they can’t take that away from me_

***

**3.32am.**

“Yes, yes, that will work nicely, ladies. It’s a date.”

Bella waved her phone an inch away from Aziraphale’s face, clumsily jabbing a finger at the calendar app she had open as she barely contained a screech of excitement. “Are you sure? Write it down so you don’t forget us.”

“Again,” Clara added, following the word with a grin a second after Aziraphale spluttered protestations in his best impression of a mild-mannered bookseller who was well overdue brunch with his very human boyfriend’s non-groupies.

Such was the angel’s indignation that the weight of Clara’s well-intended verbal jab knocked him back a pace. Although that might have been the absinthe. It was one of the night’s enduring mysteries. “I can _assure_ you…”

“Hey, you two sounded pretty good earlier, have you ever thought about starting a band?” Lily interrupted Aziraphale’s bleating before he had a chance to fully voice his shock that anybody would even suggest, imply, _or_ infer that he might do something as dastardly as forget about a brunch date. Heaven’s above.

“Oh my god, oh my god, do you think so?” Clara asked, bouncing up and down on the spot as she brought her hands to her mouth and dissolved into rapturous screeching.

Bella reached up to wrap a hand around Clara’s forearm as she widened her eyes. “We always thought about it, didn’t we, Clara? Maybe we should. Maybe we should just do it. Should we just do it? I think we should.”

“Why not?” Lily laughed, slapping a marker pen against the palm of one hand. “If idiots like us four can book gigs, there’s hope for anyone. Now, must dash, time to wreak low-level havoc.”

Ominous parting words delivered, she bounded off to join Sammy, who was barely containing childlike glee as he glanced from the marker pen in Lily’s fist to Dan’s carefree sleeping form, spread-eagled charmingly on the sofa.

“Never gets old, drawing a dick on your friend’s forehead, does it?” Lily called over to Aziraphale and the girls, pausing to grip the pen cap between her teeth and pull the pen free. She brandished it like the holiest of weapons, before turning her attention to the human canvas sleeping soundly, innocently beneath them.

While Clara and Bella peered over to marvel at the level of intimate detail Lily was artfully sketching across Dan’s forehead, a thought had begun to wind itself around Aziraphale’s brain. _It might just be the perfect moment_ , the angel realised. _I’ve got this human thing cracked. I hope you’re watching, Crowley, because I'm about to truly become one of them._

“Looks terrible, Lily. Terrible drawing. Where did you learn how to draw? At the…school of terrible drawing?” Merciless insults as a complex love language, it was easy enough to get to grips with. Aziraphale nodded happily at his own success, had even gone so far as to cup his hands around his mouth to ensure everybody at the party heard him.

The group fell silent, looking from Aziraphale to Lily as confusion etched its way across their faces and they tried to piece together why in the world the sweet bookseller they had come to know and love would say something so _mean_.

“What’s your problem, Zira?” Lily glared over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes at the angel before she looked back at her handiwork, suddenly unsure if she might have missed an important anatomical detail that might take her masterpiece from _terrible_ to awe-inspiring.

“I, er. Goodness, I’m so sorry, my dear girl. I never meant to… Oh, how could I? What a horrible thing to say. It’s, er, it’s _very_ lovely, what you’ve drawn. Tip top.” Stumbling forward as he approached the sofa with both hands held up in apology, Aziraphale crouched down next to Lily and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Honestly, it’s the most… _detailed_ forehead appendage I’ve seen in quite some time.”

Doing her best to stop her glare creasing into a smile, Lily pursed her lips and passed Aziraphale the marker pen, nodding pointedly down at the spare stretch of space that was Dan’s right cheek. “Go on then, if you think you can do better.”

“Oh, no, I absolutely don’t think I can do better. You’ve created quite the…”

“Go on, mate, knock her down a peg or two.” Sammy leaned forward, giving Aziraphale a nudge in the right direction. Behind them, the rest of the partygoers were gathered in a small circle, watching the scene unfold with silent interest. Silent, except for Crowley, who emitted a weary sigh as he watched Aziraphale swallow nervously and press the tip of the marker pen against Dan’s cheek.

“Well, let’s see.” The angel paused, looking back at Crowley and letting his gaze settle over the front of the demon’s jeans, as if they might beam forth a jolt of divine inspiration.

“Don’t look at me,” Crowley called back. “You’ll have to use your imagination for this one.”

“Oh, oh, well that will be easy enough, won’t it?” Aziraphale snipped, unknowingly relaxing his grip on the pen and casting a thick black line down the length of Dan’s face. “It’s not as though I’ve been _trying_ to get a good look to refresh my imagination _all night._ ”

“Right!” Mick stepped forward then, clapping his hands together as if he knew the conversation was about to take a turn he didn’t have the emotional resilience to weather. “Lily, excellent job, as always. Zira, I’m sure whatever you were going to produce would have been…tip top. Let’s, er, let sleeping frontmen lie, shall we?”

As the group turned back to their previous conversations, Aziraphale went to stand up and might have actually managed it if Lily hadn’t taken that moment to clamp her hands on his shoulders to pin him in place. She took the marker pen smoothly from him, a wicked grin spreading across her face as she gripped his chin with her other hand. “And where do you think you’re going?”

***

_Do you recognise me at all?_ Crowley looked casually across at Luci as they sipped their drink, looking up at their framed sketch that hung slightly off-kilter on the wall in front of them. _You don’t, do you? I’m a human to you, nothing more, nothing less. I see so much of them in you. That same spirit, that same…brightness._

“Are you okay, little one?” Luci asked, a gentle hand coming to rest at Crowley’s waist. He felt warmth at their touch, tried to swallow the pang of longing for his old friend as drunken confidence formed thoughts in his mind of how it would feel to finally bring the two of them back together, after all of that time.

_I won’t come back here without you, Lucifer. I won’t come back here unless I can bring the two of you back with me. That’s what it means to be a family, doesn’t it? That we stick together, that we pull each other through. And we are a family, even if we’ve all been apart for so very long. You were my first family. You saved me, and now it’s my turn to save you, both of you._

“Yes.” He smiled at Luci, gave a little nod of reassurance that he was absolutely, one hundred percent fine. And, in that precise moment, he was because, at last, he had the semblance of a plan. How to execute it was another challenge entirely but there would be plenty of time to figure out the specifics. So many hundreds of years had already passed, what would a few more weeks matter? “Yes, I’m fine. Another drink?”

“Always.” Luci laughed, passing him their glass and watching him fondly as he poured them both a refill. He was a little unsteady on his feet, a lot unsteady, in fact, but his tears had dried and whatever had caused them seemed to have taken a backseat. It had caught them off guard, how quickly they had come to love that gentle soul who had taken their dear friend and made him so very happy. It had been a pleasant surprise how quickly he had become part of their winding family of waifs and strays and those who might have been forgotten, who might have slipped through the cracks if they hadn’t forged their own path, found their own imperfect family to anchor them through the chaos of existence.

“Here. New creation, that.” Crowley passed back a drink, a dubious concoction of tequila and rum and something vaguely purple-tinged swirling in the glass.

“Aren’t you an imaginative one?” They took a sip and smiled, ignored the fire on their tongue as the combination of spirits burned a path down their throat. “Quite a kick.”

Before either of them could speak again, the contemplative mood was cut through by Aziraphale’s happy cries as he careened up to Crowley, slinging his arms around the demon’s hips as he beamed inanely.

“Crowley, look! I’m a demon!”

It could only have been Lily’s handiwork, the black curving horns sketched above each of the angel’s eyebrows, complete with a pointy little beard drawn onto the tip of his chin. The effect was positively devilish. Sort of. Or it might have been, if it had been drawn on literally anybody other than the only angel who resided on that planet.

“Look at those demonic eyebrows, angel. Very…helly.”

“Helly?” Aziraphale wrinkled his nose, let out a little laugh of gentle teasing, as if he wasn’t the one standing there with a face full of marker pen graffiti. “Shouldn’t it be hellish?”

Crowley rolled his eyes, meeting Luci in a smile. “Oh, all right, we can’t all be a walking, er…”

“Dictionary? Heavens, my dear, how _much_ have you had to… Oh!” As the angel abruptly cut himself short, Crowley followed his eye line and sucked in a horrified breath as Aziraphale took a juddering pace towards the thing that had caught his attention: his sword, which was peeking out from behind the sideboard.

“Don’t you even _think_ about it,” the demon hissed, grabbing for the waistband of the angel’s trousers and yanking him back before he could lay one finger on his heavenly weapon and blow their cover once and for all.

As Aziraphale opened his mouth to protest further, Mick unknowingly stepped into the role of life-saver by bellowing out the ultimate distraction for a very thirsty angel with a very deep love of hot chocolate.

“Hot chocolate! Who wants a hot chocolate?”

“Me! Me, me, me!” Sword all but forgotten for the time-being, Aziraphale turned to Mick as if he was quite clearly the messiah and thrust one arm up into the air, in case his very enthusiastic wailing didn’t quite hammer the point home. “Please! Mick! Cocoa! Please!”

“Cocoa? Calm down, do you think you’re bloody Dickens or something?” The big man laughed, clapping a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder before turning his attention to Crowley. “Come on, you, give me a hand.”

***

“Are you all right, son?” Mick asked, leaning back against the kitchen worktop as he waited for the milk to boil. “You seemed upset earlier.”

“Oh, you know.” Crowley shrugged, waving his concern away with a hand. “Emotional few days. Haven’t been sleeping well. Better now.”

“Hmm. Well, as long as you're sure” Mick nodded, though there was a look of suspicion in his eyes that betrayed the smile on his face.

The demon picked up the block of chocolate and broke off a few squares, suspending them above the milk that had just begun to bubble. “Time to chuck this in?”

“Go for it.”

For all of the many years that he had known Aziraphale, the angel had always had a penchant for hot chocolate, which made it even more alarming when Crowley had realised he had absolutely no idea how to make the drink. Tea was a different matter. Tea was his comfort zone. Hot chocolate? A wild new frontier. He dropped the squares of dark chocolate into the saucepan, jumping back as a flick of boiling milk splashed against his thumb.

“Careful.” Mick laughed, gently stirring the chocolate into the milk as it began to melt. “It’s a wonder any of us have made it to the end of the night without serious injury.”

“It was only meant to be a quiet one,” Crowley said sleepily, more to himself than anybody else.

“Well, those are always the nights that get out of hand, you should know that by now. You’re usually the ringleader.”

Crowley smiled, felt himself swell with pride on Anthony’s behalf and wondered idly what sort of scrapes he might lead the band into in the future, when the world was theirs and there was no threat of interference, of becoming collateral damage in the war between two celestial realms.

“Have you got any squirty cream?” Mick asked, leaning back to tug the fridge open in search of canned dairy products to further enhance the group’s end-of-the-night hot chocolate experience. He scanned the desolate shelves of the fridge, long since raided by both an angel and a demon, and their party guests. “Bit sparse is here, isn’t it, mate? Reckon you need next week’s allotment drop off a bit earlier than usual.”

“Allotment,” Crowley murmured the word aloud, tried to remain calm as his mind was filled with visions of sprawling greenery, with rows and rows of succulent vegetables and tender fruits and wild, glorious plant life as far as the eye could see. _Plants. Plants, plants, plants. Calm down. Plants. So many plants._

“Yes.” Mick resumed stirring duty, wrinkled his nose as he watched a revolving door of expressions parade their way across Crowley’s face. “The allotment. Where I grow my vegetables. The ones that stop you lot getting rickets. Are you all right?”

“Plants.” The word escaped the demon’s lips before he had a chance to contain it. It hung between them for a moment, then faded away as both man and demon pretended it had never happened. “Yeah, so, the allotment. All that veg. So, er, do you, by chance, need any help with it? I mean, can I come down and help you with it one day? I’ll weed. I don’t mind weeding. Love weeding, me.”

“Since when have you-” Mick shook his head, deciding to drop the point before he could make it. It might be nice to have some company as he strolled about the patch of land. It used to be a shared activity, of course, but…well, time had passed and it might be nice to share it again. “Yes, son, I’d love that.”

They worked in peaceful silence for a little while longer, mixing a pinch of cinnamon into the pan before ladling the finished product into a row of mugs, topping each one with a generous handful of marshmallows.

“Thought this might help you boot everyone out. Signal the end of the night, you know? This lot might keep on going ’til tomorrow night if we don’t give them a nudge, eh?” Mick took a sip from his own mug, sighing happily as the sweet drink hit his tastebuds. Then he gave Crowley a careful look. “They’re a riot, aren’t they, Zira’s friends? Raphael and Luci, they’re very friendly. They invited _me_ to a party. I’m actually a bit nervous about it, mate. What if it’s…”

“An orgy?” Crowley finished his sentence, knew precisely where Mick’s mind was taking him. “Could be. Orgy or some sort of ritualistic human sacrifice. Either or. Place your bets.”

Mick laughed, as if he was far too exhausted to truly consider either possibility. “I don’t know which would be worse.”

“Oh, the orgy, for sure. All that crushed velvet, I can picture it now.”

***

**4.19am.**

Crowley rolled his eyes as Aziraphale glugged a generous measure of whisky into the remainder of his hot chocolate. “No, angel. I’ve already mixed enough drinks tonight. If I drink any more my soul will leave my body.”

“Mine already did!” Aziraphale piped up happily. “Remember that? What a palaver. Nightmare, let me tell you.”

“Mmm, yes. Your body buddy couldn’t make it tonight then?” Crowley let out a little huff, unable to fully let go of the irritating flare of jealousy he felt whenever he was forced to remember those hours when Aziraphale had, first of all, gone missing under very suspicious and fiery circumstances, and, second of all, had had to take refuge in another person’s body. It was a little like their current situation, he supposed. Only it was nothing at all like that and he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to let go of the immature animosity he felt towards the very pleasant medium who had let his soulmate shack up within her corporation during very desperate times.

“Don’t be petulant, Crowley.”

“I’m not being petulant, I’m being-”

What Crowley was being was to remain another one of that night’s burning mysteries, as he was interrupted by a big black dog slamming into his legs. Barnaby, who had been accidentally released from his bedroom prison after Dan had somehow got lost on his way to the bathroom he had visited hundreds of times previously, had taken that moment to announce that he was well overdue some attention.

Petulance all but forgotten, Crowley passed his empty hot chocolate mug to Aziraphale and slapped at the front of his thighs, encouraging the dog until he leaped into his arms, scrabbling up the demon’s jeans with his back legs until he was firmly cradled against his master’s chest.

As the next song ticked onto the playlist and a cheery beat echoed around the room, Aziraphale watched as Crowley danced with the dog in his arms, one arm cupped under Barnaby’s back legs to hold him up, the dog’s front legs draped over the demon’s shoulders. He sang along with the song’s happy lyrics, getting close to every other word wrong but neither caring nor noticing, pausing every few words to press a loud kiss to Barnaby’s snout.

_God, I love you_ , Aziraphale thought, felt an overwhelming rush of love as he watched Crowley move towards him, staggering under Barnaby’s weight. _Look at you, look how free you are, how unafraid, I should have brought us here in the very beginning._ He smiled to himself, no sense in mourning all that wasted time, that’s what Crowley would tell him. The best thing he could do to honour the sacrifices they had made was to make up for that lost time, to stop hiding how he felt, to revel in the luxury of being able to walk up to the one he loved, to kiss him, to tell him how utterly in love with him he was.

So that is exactly what Aziraphale did.

Crowley smiled, kissed him back and then, as the last strains of the party reared their head, an angel and a demon danced until the dawn, with Barnaby cradled between them like the spoiled canine baby that he was, the three of them surrounded by everything they had ever needed: all the family and laughter and love in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happyyyy hump day, chums! I hope you enjoyed today's chapter - next time the party is over and we have the fallout (and clean up!) to deal with...!
> 
> My next upload dates are:
> 
> Friday 31st: Da Vinci chapter two  
> Wednesday 5th: Da Vinci chapter three (+ art reveal!)  
> Friday 7th: Part three, chapter six
> 
> Thank you for all your lovely feedback on chapter one of the Da Vinci short story, in case you wanted to read that one but haven't had a chance you can find it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22283461/chapters/53217424
> 
> Anyway, pals, tell me of your news! It feels like ages since I've had a chance to have a catch up with you all. I hope your week has been lovely and I'll see you in the comments <3


	6. The Dreads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I’ve cracked this human existence, Crowley. It’s just a meticulously-timed cycle of eating and drinking and sleeping at just the right moment.”

**March. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

The morning after the night before, Crowley awoke to the sound of sweet birdsong.

The demon opened one dry eye and glared weakly in the direction of the window, where a little brown and white bird was perched on the edge of the outside sill, beak angled up towards the sunny sky as it trilled a pretty melody.

It was, all things considered, a very gentle way to be woken up. Unless, of course, you had only gone to bed three hours previously after a night of irresponsible, immature, illogical alcohol consumption.

“Will someone shut that fucking nightingale up?”

The sound that crawled out of Crowley’s mouth was little more than a choked rasp and the demon ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, discovering both the taste and texture he imagined he would find at the bottom of a birdcage.

“Angel,” he murmured weakly, inching one arm desperately across the bed in search of Aziraphale’s sleeping form. He found nothing there, just wrinkled sheets that had gathered under the angel’s pillow after their post-party fraternising had rendered them incapable of clinging onto the underside of the mattress. Elastic, the angel and demon had learned, could weather many storms but not, as it turned out, their enthusiastic celebration of their party guests finally leaving them to their own debauched devices.

Crowley had roamed the human realm for six thousand years but it wasn’t until that precise moment he truly understood how it felt to be hungry, dehydrated, nauseous, and riddled with both regret and anxiety for no explicable reason, all at the same exact time. It was not a welcome feeling.

“Aziraphale,” he called, flopping over onto his back with all the effort he could muster, bringing one hand to the side of his lips in case it helped to amplify the sound. “Aziraphale, where are you? Please, angel!”

_That poor angel,_ Crowley thought, gathering the courage to open his other eye and take in the scene around him. Open curtains, rumpled bedsheets, a pair of trousers dangling from the bedpost…it was less chaotic than he’d thought, which was something, at least. _Where is he? Where is my sweet angel? What if he got out and got lost? No. No, calm down, he’s not a dog. He’s an angel. An angel who no longer has the ability to miraculously sober himself up at a moment’s notice. He hates hangovers, he’ll be frantic, he’ll…_

The bedroom door swung open, startling Crowley out of his internal monologue, and Aziraphale came stumbling through the door with a cheery smile on his face. He plopped heavily down on the edge of the bed, causing a shockwave to run through the mattress that left Crowley gripping his head in pain.

“Well, wasn’t last night a lot of fun?”

Crowley dropped one hand from his head, staring up at Aziraphale in absolute confusion. The angel was backlit by the sunlight pouring in from the window but, despite the fact his face was half-shadowed, he looked…spritely. “Fun? What do you mean _fun_? Shouldn’t you be cursing alcohol to the pits of hell?”

“Now why in the world would I do that?” Aziraphale asked, brows knitting together as he peered down at Crowley. He reached out to run a finger along the underside of the demon’s jaw, pursing his lips in sympathy. “Are you all right, my dear? You look at bit peaky.”

“Peaky? I’m…how are you even _alive_ , angel? I remember you free-pouring tequila down your own throat and _gargling_ it to the tune of…”

“Twinkle twinkle, little star.”

“Yes, that was it. You should be me, you should be under the duvet crying about existence. _I_ should be the one pottering around the flat wittering on about eggs and amino acids. Oh, bloody hell, get some eggs on the go, will you? I might actually discorporate if…”

“Die. We can actually die now.”

“Excellent. Yes. A dreadful reminder of my newfound mortality. Thank you for that. Now, why are you smiling as if you aren’t in a world of pain?”

Aziraphale shrugged, gave his head a little toss to and fro as if to illustrate that he had truly defied the odds and really had escaped hangover hell. Then he leaned closer to Crowley and tapped the side of his nose, as if he was about to divulge a precious secret. “I beat the system, my love.”

Crowley sighed, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his chin gently against them. “What did you do, angel?”

“Well…” Aziraphale sucked in a deep breath, as if he had absolutely no intention of deviating from his story to do something as mundane as _breathe_. “After we sent everybody home and we _finally_ managed to get some uninterrupted time to ourselves, you, my sweet demon, fell into the deepest of sleeps and I, well, didn’t. I walked around the flat for a while, I marvelled at the amount of empty bottles such a small group could accrue, I, er, expelled a touch of vomit…in the toilet! I promise, no need to look so alarmed. Quite a bracing bodily function, if I’m honest, not sure I’m keen to repeat it but we’ll just chalk it up to experience, shall we? So, what next? Ah, yes, had a bit of a funny taste in my mouth after that so I ate some toast. And then I realised I _really_ love toast so I had five more slices. Oh, we’re out of butter, by the way. And bread. I played hide and seek with Barnaby for a while and then I heard you wailing into the ether so I thought I’d better check on you.”

The angel shifted position as his story came to its close, and he slapped both palms lightly against his knees and gave a little wiggle of satisfaction at _beating the system_ , as he called it. As he stood up and wobbled towards the door, understanding dawned on Crowley and he smiled wickedly, as if his beloved’s imminent downfall was something he would take great pleasure in. He was a demon, after all.

“Angel?”

Aziraphale stopped in the doorway, tottering in a messy circle as he turned back to face Crowley, clutching for the door to keep his balance. “Yes, my dear?”

The demon’s smile widened into a grin. “Do you think perhaps you’re not hungover because you’re still drunk? You look a little…unsteady there.”

“No.” Aziraphale shook his head resolutely, then staggered a pace to the left and looked up, eyebrows raising in shock. “No, no I can’t be. I…I think I’ve cracked this human existence, Crowley. It’s just a meticulously-timed cycle of eating and drinking and sleeping at just the right moment. I…can’t still be drunk. I ate toast.”

“Did you drink water like I told you to? Your glass is still half full.”

“My glass is always half full, Crowley, I’m an angel.”

“You didn’t drink any, did you?”

“No…but, the toast.”

“Angel, bread is many wonderful things but a miracle cure is, alas, not one of them. You rode Dan around the living room like a horse while downing a pint of beer. Of _beer_ , Aziraphale. Since when have you ever…”

“Crowley, stop. Please.” Aziraphale swallowed tightly, wringing his hands as if real, palpable fear was beginning to set in. He looked around as if he might find the answer to his woes written on the ceiling or, perhaps, the floor. “I don’t feel right. I feel all…woozy and energetic. Why do I have so much energy, Crowley? I haven’t even been to sleep. Please, you have to help me.”

“What did I tell you all those moons ago?” Crowley smiled again, knew that if he wasn’t already hellbound, hell was exactly where he would have been sent for torturing that sweet soul with threats of a hangover worthy of the end times. The _actual_ end times. “Don’t let the dreads get to you, angel. Now, why don’t you burn some of that energy off and take Barnaby for a walk? It might help you sober up and I need absolute silence, lest I perish.”

“Okay, yes, perhaps that will help. A jog, maybe? Will a jog help? Crowley, please, will a jog help?”

“I think a jog will do the trick quite nicely. Nothing as sobering as a jog, so they say.” The demon took a wary pace forward, found that his limbs did all still work as expected, and pressed a kiss to the angel’s quivering lips. “Maybe you could pick up supplies on the way back. Coffee, bread, bacon, eggs, that should see us through this horror show. Chop chop, angel. We might survive this hangover yet.”

Aziraphale nodded desperately, calling for Barnaby. As he turned to leave, Crowley noticed a streak of something on his forehead, then let out a little laugh as a memory from the night before flashed through his mind.

“Something the matter, dear?” Aziraphale asked, looking back around and giving the demon a face-on view for the first time that morning. “Why are you looking at me like that, is something wrong?”

Crowley bit his lip, shaking his head a little too enthusiastically. “No, nothing at all. Off you go, angel, have a nice walk.”

***

“I can’t _believe_ you!” Aziraphale slammed the flat door behind him, pausing to kneel down and unclip Barnaby’s lead, giving the dog a pat on the shoulder for good measure. “Good boy, Barnaby, go and play. Do _not_ give your father _any_ attention whatsoever, we’re not talking to him.”

“Quiet down, angel, please.” Crowley opened one eye from behind his sunglasses, waved a hand limply in front of his body, which was sprawled horizontally across the sofa. “Some of us are just trying to survive the day. Did you get the coffee? I heard it’s integral to overcoming a hangover. Of course, according to the book it’s not the best thing to beat the dreads, can just exacerbate the anxiety but…”

Aziraphale sighed, closing his eyes as if it would help him summon up one last iota of patience. “I really, really don’t want to hear about the book right now. Can we talk about the fact you sent me out in public knowing I had this… _mess_ on my face. How could you let me walk out the door knowing I look like this? Poor show, Crowley, poor show.”

The angel stabbed a finger against his forehead, where his fingertip smeared the already smudged horn that Lily had drawn on him the night before. His pointy little beard of mischief had been reduced to an inky blob that stretched across one side of his jaw like an asymmetrical chin strap, while the other devil horn was blended up towards his hairline like a second, bolder eyebrow.

“Thought it would be funny.” From his comfortable position on the sofa, Crowley gave a shrug, which was about as much as he could do without a sharp pain blooming in his head.

“Right, well, I’m glad it was so amusing for you. I got _chased_. Yes, chased down the road by two boys trying to take my picture. Said they wanted to put it online. _Online._ Can you imagine the uproar that would cause if _up there_ got wind of it? Hmm, what do you think about that? Is that _funny_?”

“The idea of Gabriel and the God Squad uncovering our hidey-hole because a picture of you with devil horns went viral is mildly amusing to me, yes.”

“Went _viral_? Good lord, you’re getting far too comfortable living as a human. Look at you, laying around like you’ve…got the day off. We’re supposed to be saving the world, we don’t have time for reclining. Get up, come on.” The angel stormed over to the sofa, grabbing Crowley by the bicep and attempting to haul him to his feet.

The demon let out a low groan of protestation, trying to bat Aziraphale’s hand away as if it burned where it touched his skin. Meanwhile, his other hand was busy ruffling Barnaby behind the ears, as if it was the most important job he could conceive of. “We will save the world, angel. We just need to have a rest first. Doesn’t that sound nice? Little nap, snuggle on the sofa, bacon and eggs on toast, what do you say?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips, then relaxed his grip on Crowley’s arm and melted into a small smile. He sat down on the sofa, his body occupying the swell of space left in front of the demon. He licked one index finger, then began rubbing idly at the devil horns on his forehead. “That does sound nice, I suppose. Just a short nap won’t hurt, will it?”

“Course it won’t. Just need to recharge our batteries and we’ll be good to go. All that…saving the world malarky.” The demon grinned up at him, craned his neck as he stretched up for a kiss that tasted of mouthwash and tequila. “You still haven’t sobered up, have you?”

“Not too sure, if I’m honest. Haven’t spent much time in a human body when I haven’t been, er, under the influence, as it were. Who would have thought that out of the two of us I’d be the one swanning around half-cut like some sort of lush? Oh, that reminds me! What about this bath you promised me yesterday when we were getting ready for the party? An unholy amount of bath bombs, that’s what you said.”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” Pulling himself up with a wince of pain, Crowley leaned forward to brace his elbows against his thighs and ran his hands through his hair. He held his palms out and squinted down at them, then turned to Aziraphale in confusion. “Why is my hair so greasy? Is it the alcohol?”

“I think you’re meant to wash it, Crowley,” Aziraphale mused. "Perhaps it needs doing every day."

“Every day? I have to wash it _every day_? Who’s got time for that? Why are humans so…oily?” The demon looked plaintively towards the bathroom, unable to fathom an existence that required daily grooming habits that extended beyond a quick click of the fingers to restore order. Sure, he had grown fond of the odd shower and hair wash in another life, had quite enjoyed dabbling with cologne and hair styles and eyeliner over the years, but that was all through choice, something of a fun hobby he indulged in when work was thin on the ground and he needed to keep himself occupied. Now it felt like necessity the novelty was quickly wearing off. “Honestly, angel, no wonder they don’t have time to get anything done. By the time we’ve cooked breakfast, washed our hair, tidied up this mess…what else do we need to do?”

“Stock up on bath bombs?”

“Ah, angel, can it wait? I can’t face sunlight today. Can we go tomorrow?”

“No, Crowley, we can’t go tomorrow. I don’t want to deepen your despair but we have to work tomorrow. You know, part of not interfering with the little ones’ lives, that great plan we dreamed up?”

“ _Work_? You mean…Wait, what do you mean? You’re not actually suggesting I do…whatever it is Anthony does. What does he do anyway?”

“You should know, shouldn’t you? You’ve been…” Aziraphale trailed off, his sentence petering out as he waved vaguely up and down the length of Crowley’s body. “…Living in there for months now.”

“I usually have a snooze while he’s working. Hurts my eyes, staring at a screen for that long. Did you know that ongoing exposure to blue light from electronic devices can cause headaches, eye strain, loss of focus? And that’s only the beginning.” The demon swallowed a hiccup, reached for a glass of water on the coffee table and took a sip. His face screwed up in a tableau that could have been titled The Moment of Regret as he swallowed the remnants of a glass that had been filled not with water but with rum and lemonade, which had long since lost its fizz. “Oh, oh that’s awful. Angel, could you get me some water? Please.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, wondering idly if there was anything he wouldn’t do for love, and then bumbled off into the kitchen, both grateful for the spring in his step and fearful that soon the time would come when that spring would falter and he would have to take to the sofa for the foreseeable future.

“Make us some bacon and eggs while you’re there, will you?” Crowley called out after him, punctuating the sentence with a loud kiss, as if that would somehow seal the deal.

It did, in fact, seal the deal, and two minutes later Aziraphale found himself staring down at an empty frying pan on the hob as he contemplated cooking breakfast.

***

During the months that Aziraphale had been hidden away in the back of Zira’s mind, he had often wondered why the human got so stressed when tasked with assembling breakfast. Aziraphale had eaten breakfast plenty of times over the years and, even if he had never _cooked_ breakfast, he was sure there couldn’t be that much to it.

Twenty minutes later he emerged, red-faced, bleary-eyed, oil-flecked, and sweating, with two plates of something that vaguely passed as sustenance gripped in his hands. He stood in the doorway, attempting to catch his breath as the fire alarm wailed desperately in the background.

“Could you get that, Crowley? Make it stop, please.”

The demon raised his head a couple of inches from the arm of the sofa, then gently nestled it back down, closing his eyes as if that might somehow close his ears at the same time. “Just waft a tea towel at it, that’s what the humans do.”

“My hands are full, in case you didn’t notice. Can you just do _something_ to help?” Aziraphale hissed, thrusting the plates of food onto the coffee table as he stalked back into the kitchen. A moment later, Crowley heard the flick of a tea towel whipping desperately back and forth in front of the fire alarm. And then, glorious peace.

The demon reached for a plate of breakfast, balancing it on one knee as he popped the golden yolk of one egg with the tip of his knife. It wasn’t runny. It wasn’t even half runny. It had, perhaps, been runny ten minutes previously but runny was a distant pipe dream for that particular egg. Even so, as Crowley took his first bite he silently declared it the best breakfast he had ever tasted. By the time he’d finished the eggs and had turned his focus to the blackened bacon, Aziraphale staggered out from the kitchen and flopped down next to him, clutching his head with one hand as he folded an entire piece of toast into his mouth.

“I think it’s finally hitting me. The hangover, I mean. I feel wretched.” Aziraphale heaved a sigh, looked at Crowley with wide eyes that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a baby deer. When he spoke, it was as if his entire future happiness rested on the demon’s reply. “Is the food okay? I know I’m not much cop at this cooking lark but I’ll keep trying.”

“Angel,” Crowley murmured, leaning close for a quick peck, smiling as he felt the crunch of breadcrumbs on the angel’s lips. “It’s perfect. Everything is utterly perfect.”

Aziraphale’s head had begun to feel as though it was being squeezed in a vice from every angle, his throat felt dry, and his stomach was worryingly unsettled. Despite it all, at the sound of Crowley’s voice declaring everything was utterly perfect, he had never felt better. Except for six hours earlier when he had been filled to the brim with all the frivolity of a spontaneous night of antics. “Sometimes I can’t believe we’re really here. Did you ever think all those years ago when we dreamed of a life together that we would ever really make it?”

“Yeah. I did, angel. I always knew we would make it in the end, even if it took a little while.” Crowley nodded, thought back to the hope that had sustained him through so many centuries of darkness.

Aziraphale smiled, forever heart-warmed by Crowley’s deep-down optimism, buried as it was under layers and layers _and layers_ of demonic pessimism. It was then that he spotted a small slip of white paper by the front door.

“Crowley, what’s that on the floor?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TFIF, the weekend is here! What have you all been up to, friends? Let me know in the comments!
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed this morning of hangover hell...to be continued next week! The next upload dates are:
> 
> Weds 12th: Part III Chapter Seven  
> Fri 14th: Raphael Chapter Four
> 
> You might have seen that I posted the last chapter of my Crowley and Aziraphale sit for Da Vinci story, which you can read here (thank you so much for all the kind comments <3): https://archiveofourown.org/works/22283461/chapters/53217424 (and don't forget to check out the stunning art to go alongside it that you'll find listed at the end of the story!)
> 
> Finally, in very exciting news...! A group of absolutely incredible friends (all of whom you will no doubt recognise from both the Ineffably Yours comment sections and their own amazing work on AO3) put together the most unbelievable surprise for my birthday in December. They've recorded and edited a podfic of Ineffably Yours Part One (parts two and three, and side stories will be in the works soon!) and I cannot even begin to tell you how bloody brilliant it is. Their gorgeous voices, the editing, the sound effects!!! Honestly, I cried when they sent it to me and I cry pretty much every time I even think about it 😂. We (they, to be more accurate, because this was completely 100% them) started posting it recently and there's now about an hour's worth of chapters ready for you to listen to so please please go and give it a listen, it's just...the best thing ever. I also get to read two of the chapters, which I'm mega excited about!
> 
> You can listen to it here (and see a list of everyone who contributed): https://archiveofourown.org/works/22483684/chapters/53724280
> 
> I cannot say enough superlatives about these beautiful souls but thank you and I love you so very much <3


	7. All Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yes, well, let’s get back to the present, shall we? No good in pointing fingers after the horse has bolted, is there?”

**March. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

“ _To the gentlemen inside number nine who thought it was appropriate to host a rave that-_ ”

“Well, it wasn’t a rave, was it? They’ve lost my interest already.” Crowley yawned, as if listening to Aziraphale regale him with the first half a sentence of the note had rendered him just about ready for his second nap of the day.

“Crowley, this is _serious_ ,” Aziraphale hissed, thrusting the note in Crowley’s direction. The demon raised an eyebrow, falling silent compliantly, and gestured for the angel to continue. “ _To the gentlemen who thought it was appropriate to host a rave that lasted from dusk until dawn._ ”

“Didn’t start at dusk, though, did it?”

That time Aziraphale didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The murderous glare he shot Crowley sufficed. As he continued reading the note, Aziraphale paced up and down in front of the coffee table, his speed increasing as he got further and further through the passive aggressive rant that had been slipped beneath the front door somewhere between the karaoke session beginning and the party ending.

“ _We’re so delighted that you have such a robust sound system. Truly. It was so generous of you to share its mighty power with us. Hearing a strangled cat shriek its way through karaoke was the most wonderful surprise the weekend held. Not that we want to rain on anybody’s parade but the next time you plan on screaming until five in the morning we WILL take further action._ ”

Aziraphale stopped pacing then, folding the note in half and letting it flutter out of his hands and down onto the coffee table. He looked down at the ground then up at the ceiling, teeth biting nervously against his bottom lip as he closed his eyes and sighed.

“How did we let this happen? We’ve been back for twenty four hours and we’ve already landed them in trouble. That was the only rule, Crowley, the _only_ rule. Don’t interfere with the little ones’ lives. Well, we’ve really gone and done it this time, haven’t we? Their reputation is in tatters, they’ll never recover from this.”

“And I don’t think I’m ever going to recover from this hangover, can we talk about that instead?” On the sofa, Crowley idly looked away from the mirror he had balanced on his knees, which he’d unhooked from the wall after needing to get a closer look at his hair in all its greasy glory. A small groan escaped his lips when he caught sight of the frantic expression on Aziraphale’s face and realised it was not going to be the quiet afternoon of recovery he had planned.

“No! No, we can’t. We need to fix this right now, Crowley.” Aziraphale stalked towards him, plucking the mirror from his lap and carefully replacing it on the wall, taking a moment to grimace at his own harrowing reflection. He swung Crowley’s legs off of the sofa, collapsing down into the space they left behind and pulling them back across his thighs a moment later. “I can’t cope with this. My head… I need a sandwich, a bath, and a nap. All at the same time. How could we mess things up so quickly?”

“I think we messed up when you had your pirate mimosa brainwave,” Crowley mumbled, though his enunciation wasn’t quite blurred enough for Aziraphale to miss the jab.

The angel huffed, as was customary, flinging Crowley’s legs out of his lap and onto the floor, where the demon’s feet collided with the rug with a satisfying _thunk_. “Well, _I_ think we messed up when you cried on every guest who came through the door.”

Crowley leaned forward, but slowly, given the pounding in his head, and narrowed his eyes as he hissed out his final trump card. “ _Fine_. I think we messed up when you decided to tell the humans every little detail of our secret history.”

“Yes, well, let’s get back to the present, shall we? No good in pointing fingers after the horse has bolted, is there?” Aziraphale said primly, glancing down at Crowley as if he was far too angelic to get dragged into a petty bout of name-calling, particularly if he was poised to lose said petty bout of name-calling.

“That’s not right, angel. It’s something about bolting the stable door, not-”

“I know! Crowley! _Please_ can we stay focused?”

“I was focused until you started waving that note in my face. I was focused on my hair, I was focused on what we’re going to eat for dinner, I was focused on perhaps squeezing in another little nap. See? Plenty of focus. Focus by the bucketload, me.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. Then he sat still for a moment, enjoying the way his head stopped pounding quite so violently if he blocked out the outside world. He sat still for so long that he didn’t come to until his chin lurched down towards his chest and he violently jerked himself awake to find Crowley hovering in front of his face, phone held up just an inch or so from his eyes.

"What are you doing?” he asked, voice too tired to foster any real emotion.

“I’ve never seen anybody literally fall asleep where they sit, angel, it had to be documented. Quite _miraculous_.” Crowley looked over the top of the phone, raising his eyebrows as if he’d just cracked the joke of the century.

“Stop that,” Aziraphale hissed, grabbing the phone out of his hand and stabbing at the screen until he managed to end the video recording. “When we _vacate the premises_ they’re going to see all of the evidence we leave behind, aren’t they? No discussing the nature of our existence on film.”

The demon shrugged, flopping back into his nest and tossing the phone onto the coffee table as if the angel had just wrung the last drop of fun out of the morning. “That seems like a very niche rule.”

“This is a _very niche_ situation, Crowley! Honestly, couldn’t you have left me sleeping for a moment? It was all that wittering on about naps that did it.”

Crowley nodded, patting his lap enticingly. “Excellent idea, angel, couldn’t have come up with a better idea myself. You settle down here and we’ll have a nice little hug and nap, how does that sound?”

Aziraphale stifled a yawn with the back of one hand, allowing himself a series of long blinks to stave off the worst of the tiredness. “That sounds like an excellent… No! No, stop trying to tempt me. We need to fix this note business. How are we going to restore order? What do humans usually do when they’ve upset somebody?”

“Promise not to do it again, buy a gift, hope the materialistic display distracts from whatever ill they committed, give it a month or two and then repeat said ill? Seems a perfectly honourable cycle, doesn’t it?”

“A gift! Perfect. We’ll buy them a gift.”

While Aziraphale clapped his hands together in glee, as if the idea of descending on the disgruntled neighbours downstairs with a bouquet of flowers and a very sombre promise not to have any more parties was his idea of a perfect afternoon, Crowley settled for rolling his eyes, wondering when his soulmate might grasp the notion of sarcasm.

“Now, what does one buy to try and pacify sleep-deprived neighbours? Ah, perhaps a hamper? Shall we go to…”

Crowley sighed, unfurling himself from the cosy den of the sofa and swiping his phone, wallet, and keys off of the coffee table as he nodded for Aziraphale to follow him. “If you’re about to say bloody Fortnum’s, think again. We’re on a budget, remember?”

***

“I thought we were on a budget…” Aziraphale grabbed for Crowley’s arm as the demon stopped dead in the middle of the street, staring up in wonder at the shop in front of them. The angel followed his gaze and found he, too, was rendered silent by the glorious scent wafting out from the shop, combined with window displays that looked more heavenly than heaven ever had.

Crowley turned to him, giving his head a little shake as he reached for the angel’s hand, entwining their fingers as he tugged him inside the shop. “Angel…just…just don’t, all right? You wanted a bath, didn’t you?”

“Yes, quite right, jolly good. Let’s go in, shall we? We’ll just treat ourselves to a couple of things, just to help us get through the day.”

They were perhaps three paces inside the shop when a friendly but terrifyingly over-enthusiastic shop assistant thrust a basket into Crowley’s empty hand and accosted them with what felt like a hundred questions in the space of five seconds. “Hi guys, welcome to Lush. How are you today? Are you here for anything in particular? What can we help you with? We’ve got a brand new range of bubble bars I can show you. Would you like a demo? Have you got a list or are you just treating yourselves? Ooh, you look a little bit worse for wear, heavy night last night, was it? Bath to recover? Always a good idea. Oh, I love your jacket, is it vintage?”

“It’s, er, no, I believe it’s quite new.” Aziraphale smiled politely, taking a step back as she advanced on him with a purple and pink swirled bubble bar that was she insistent he _had_ to watch a demo of.

“Come on, let’s leave Mister here to have a little look around and I’ll show you the new bits and bobs we’ve got in, shall I?” Without waiting for a response, she hooked her hand through the crook in Aziraphale’s arm and led him off towards a big bowl of water that was perched next to a towering stack of bath bombs, leaving Crowley alone and unsupervised, which was never a wise idea.

“Oh, yes, I can smell the violet. Very…violet-y.” The angel nodded, leaning down to inhale a cloud of the bubble bar’s sweet scent, hoping the half loaf of toast he had consumed over the past twelve hours wasn’t about to make its presence known.

While Aziraphale was busy watching an extremely alluring demo of every new item that had graced Lush’s shelves over the past six months, Crowley roamed the cavernous shop, trying and failing to exercise self-restraint. It shouldn’t have been in a demon’s nature to be drawn to something as wholesome and twee as bath bombs…but Crowley had never been hell’s run-of-the-mill demon, had always preferred flowers to flagellation, tea to torture, and self-care to sulphur pits. As he made his way around the shop, dodging smiley shop assistants around each and every corner, he found himself drawn to whichever items teetered firmly on the tightrope between whimsical and ridiculous.

_That sounds like something Aziraphale would love…Oh, glitter, well, that’s a no-brainer. Ah, rose-scented? Into the basket you go, my friend._

After he had busily filled his basket with bath time treats he knew his human counterpart would thoroughly encourage him to splurge on, he was _sure_ of it, Crowley came to rest in the queue for the cash desk and let himself take that moment of pause to disappear into contemplative self-reflection.

They had spent six thousand years pacing the Earth from pole to pole, overseeing it, watching it thrive, watching it fall into peril, and watching it endure everything the celestial realm threw at it. They had spent six millennia dodging heaven and hell in the hope that one day they would get to disappear into their lofty dream of quietly loving each other for the rest of their days. There were times when it had seemed like nothing but a pipe dream, especially to Aziraphale, Crowley knew that, as if the angel could never fathom existence together as anything but a fantasy to keep them both going when the alternative was too bleak to imagine.

In a way, that day felt something like the first day of the rest of their lives. It was the first day they had woken up together in Aziraphale’s new world, had been able to truly be together without fear of being caught. Danger was looming, of course, they both knew that, but danger felt like something of a distant roll of thunder rather than a black cloud hanging directly overhead. They were safe, for now, and they had time. Time enough, it seemed, to spend a day complaining about dehydration and purchasing bath bombs by the basket load.

As they had walked down Oxford Street in search of the perfect apology present, he had taken Aziraphale’s hand right there in the middle of the street. The angel had frozen for just a heartbeat, phantom pain pulsing in the old scar of dread. Then he had relaxed, wrapping his fingers tightly around Crowley’s hand and swinging their arms to and fro as they wound their way through throngs of Sunday shoppers, smiling brightly, despite the hangovers.

How simple it was, how good it felt after all that time. It was worth braving the outdoors, to overcome the overwhelming desire to curl up in a sofa nest and hiss at the sunlight, purely to walk hand in hand with his angel. And the best part of all? Nobody had even noticed them. Nobody had given a second thought to the tall, rakish man in black, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, or his blond-haired, fussy partner who debated whether flowers or chocolates or a fruit basket or, perhaps, a three-tier cake, would be the most appropriate apology gift.

In the end, Crowley had decided to make matters simple and tuck an oversized box of bath goodies under one arm as he moved through the queue, partially because he couldn’t think of a better way to soak off rage than in a warm bubble bath…but mostly because his headache was really starting to become a problem and the thought of braving the crowds to fight their way to one more shop was enough to leave him feeling weak. Besides, nobody could stay angry after a bubble bath, it was a truth universally acknowledged.

 _I’m sorry, little man._ Crowley tried to fashion his wince into a smile as he handed over Anthony’s debit card and bid farewell to more money than any human or demon should ever spend on bath bombs. _I’ll make it up to you, I promise, I’ll do…overtime, or something. Do all the computer things, eat jacket potatoes with beans for a month, that’s what you do, isn’t it?_

“Couldn’t say no, could you?” The demon smiled as he made his way towards the exit and passed Aziraphale, who was staggering towards the till with a basket of his own that was dangerously close to buckling under the weight contained within.

“Well, it would be _rude_ , Crowley, especially after she spent so long showing me everything. I didn’t go too over the top…I just picked up two of everything that had glitter in it.”

Crowley laughed, looked down at his own overflowing bags, then kissed the angel lightly on the cheek. “I’ll see you outside, this place is giving me a headache. Too much…positivity in the air. Makes the skin itch a bit. Or maybe that’s the glitter.”

***

“Well, I’m certainly not doing it.” Aziraphale let out a little laugh of _no way_ , passing the Lush box back to Crowley.

The demon shook his head, gently, because his hangover was yet to be a distant nightmare, and nudged the box back to Aziraphale. “You were the loudest, angel.”

“ _You_ were the one who decided to get the guitar out to play that godawful White Wedding song. The _only_ song you know how to play and, might I remind you, you have a live performance coming up in matter of weeks.”

“No, angel, you may not remind me. Now, off you go. Present, card, desperate apology, that’s all you need. Just get in and out as quickly as possible. And smile a bit, nobody can stay angry if an actual angel smiles at them.”

Aziraphale dissolved into one of his most heavenly smiles, his cheeks lifting as he basked in the warm glow of the compliment. A second later he came back to himself, waving a finger at Crowley as if to remind the demon he knew him far too well for any wool to be pulled over his angelic eyes. He pressed the brightly-coloured, psychedelic-printed box to Crowley’s chest, forcefully that time, and then folded his arms. “I won’t do it, Crowley. I’m…I’m too scared and I feel sick. And my head hurts. And I’m thirsty. And I really want a bath. Please, my love, will you do it? I’ll be ever so…”

Crowley let out a frustrated snarl, wrapping one arm around the box as he slid the card off of the coffee table. “ _Fine_.”

The angel sighed with relief, then clapped Crowley on the shoulder as he turned, Lush bag hooked over one arm, and hotfooted it into the bathroom before the demon could change his mind.

 _Stupid, soft demon_. _You’ve never been able to say no to him. All he has to do is flutter those…No, he doesn’t even have to do anything in particular, does he? All he has to do is ask. And an angel asking a favour? That’s a very dangerous thing. You of all…entities should know that by now. That’s how you found yourself plummeting through space and time into the depths of hell. It’s also how you found yourself facing the untold horror of apologising to a stranger. You never learn, do you?_

Crowley berated himself as he tramped down the stairs towards flat number seven and tried (but failed) to stop beads of nervous sweat taking up residence on his forehead. He wiped his free hand across his skin, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the feeling of dampness against his hand. _Do humans just spend all day every day leaking in escalating degrees of intensity?_

Then he was there, standing in front of door number seven as he attempted to rehearse his apology. Nothing was forthcoming. Except beads of sweat that were in danger of morphing from beads into full-blown anxiety trickles.

“Ridiculous,” he hissed, as he unballed his fist and dropped it to his side for the fourth time in as many minutes. He was trying to muster the courage to knock on the door but it was impossible. He couldn’t do it. He could survive Satan’s wrath and, yet, the thought of knocking on a neighbour’s door was too much to bear. It was, he mused, perhaps his most human moment of all.

“I’ll just…leave this here,” he murmured, crouching down and gently pushing the box across the floor until it rested against the door. He laid the card on top and straightened up. “There. Perfect.”

In what might well have been a moment of temporary insanity, he then took it upon himself to jab a finger against the doorbell until a piercing shriek rang out from inside the flat. He stood, frozen, staring open-mouthed at his own finger, as if he couldn’t quite believe his own digit would betray him so harshly.

And then there was a clatter from inside the flat and footsteps approached the door. In that moment Crowley was plunged into the tailspin of survival mode and he realised he had two choices: fight or flight. Of course, he did what any sensible, hungover demon would do: he sprinted away as fast as he could, rounded the corner and caught his foot on a step he didn’t notice was there, and face-planted the ground, very nearly breaking his very human nose in the process.

By the time he had slunk up the stairs, metaphorical tail between his legs, and staggered back into the safety of the flat, Aziraphale had donned a fluffy bath robe and was curled up on the sofa, a spread of takeaway menus fanned in his hand as he stared down at them in absolute concentration. “How did it go? I was thinking perhaps we could treat ourselves to…”

The angel looked up at the sound of Crowley slamming the door, and found his demonic counterpart standing before him with a fat lip, a look of horrified humiliation on his face, and blood dripping from his left nostril.

“Ah, they haven’t quite forgiven us then, I take it. I told you we should have gone to Fortnum’s.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy hump day everyone! I hope your week has been remarkably unstressful so far and you all have fun weekend plans coming up.
> 
> The hangovers have finally come to an end so next week we'll be moving on to an angel and a demon attempting to navigate the world of work...how is it going to go? Place your bets :D.
> 
> My next publication dates are:
> 
> Friday 14th: Raphael chapter four  
> Wednesday 19th: Part three chapter eight
> 
> Thank you all again for your lovely comments on both Da Vinci and Thank You for the Offer, I'm having so much fun getting to work on side stories at the same time as the main story, so I'm really happy you enjoyed both of those. 
> 
> Speak soon! <3


	8. Don’t Stop Me Now (I’m Having Such a Good Time)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had always been one of the demon’s least favourite four-letter words, one he had always thought of as the most boring, at least.

**April. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

_Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt._

Aziraphale uttered a sleepy little huff at the sound of the alarm buzzing to life on Crowley’s phone, promptly turning over and falling back into a perfectly lovely dream about books, armchairs, and a warm bowl of dessert that was as comforting as it was delicious. Conversely, Crowley was out of bed and shuffling through the living room before he had even had time to silence the alarm. There was no time to waste. A well-deserved bath and an early night had seen off the last of their hangovers of doom and the Monday ahead was a very exciting day indeed. For one celestial entity, at least.

As he spread lashings of butter across two slices of perfectly golden toast, Crowley realised he’d been way off base when he’d expressed such ravenous disinterest in the world of human work the previous day. It had been the hangover doing the talking, and that hangover had forgotten that Anthony Crowley was not _just_ a web designer, he was also a _dog walker extraordinaire_ and that, in Crowley’s demonic opinion, was more than enough reason to leap out of bed with far too much zest and pep for a Monday morning.

“Thor will only bring back the ball if it’s orange, Gemini and Impa must be given treats at the same time or they’ll get jealous, Mac needs a quiet walk without too many people or he gets nervous…”

With a slice of toast in one hand and Anthony’s little black book of clients in the other, Crowley paced up and down the length of the kitchen, which was, admittedly, only long enough for three of the demon’s sprawling paces before he had to about turn and begin the short journey again. He absent-mindedly shook toast crumbs free from the tips of his fingers as he buried his (purple-bruised) nose in the pages of his human counterpart’s guide to each of his canine charges, committing their preferred walking routes, times of day, treats, and toys to memory. He had no intention of giving each and every one of those fluffy little angels anything less than the best walk of their lives, only to be surpassed by the walk he would take them on the next day, and the next. If he was going to live as a dog walker, even for a short period of time, he was going to live as the best damned dog walker London, nay, the world, had ever seen.

Everything had to be perfect. The sun had barely made an appearance in the sky and the morning rush of eager commuters was in full swing, and one very enthusiastic demon was already packing his work bag, despite the fact he wasn’t due to pick up his first client for another two hours.

Toast successfully inhaled and a too-strong cup of tea imbibed, Crowley set to work filling up his water bottle and preparing snacks suitable for both human and canine into the little plastic containers he had watched Anthony dutifully fill at the beginning of every work day. Food and drink conquered, he flipped open the designated dog walking satchel and rifled through it, making sure every conceivable eventuality was covered: portable water bowls? Check. More bio-degradable poo bags than it was possible for an entire pack of hounds to make their way through in a single day? Check. Myriad treats suitable for every imaginable canine palate? Check. Spare leads, in case one happened to inconveniently discorporate mid-walk? Check. Whistle, on the off chance any of the dogs might finally start paying attention to it? Crowley slung it round his neck, his gaze lingering on the harmonica for just a moment too long, as he began wondering if perhaps that might be the better option… No, no. He shook his head, marvelling at his own remarkable sense of self-restraint. It was an instinct that had become rather rusty in recent months, that idea of having to hold back, of swallowing his desire in favour of cautious self-preservation. Still, forgoing the burning need to blast the harmonica in the middle of St James’ Park didn’t quite register in the same ball park as the six millennia of restraint that had come before it.

Crowley swung the bag over his shoulder with a little _humph_ that evolved, rather suddenly, into a much larger _humph_ as the weight beared down on him. He staggered a pace to the left, then shrugged the bag off and flopped down onto the sofa, already exhausted.

“I haven’t even left yet,” he murmured, wondering if a day would ever dawn when he didn’t feel ready for bed before he’d even made a dent in his to-do list. All the questions he’d ever had about humans’ unyielding compliance, drudgery, and all that _tutting_ made more and more sense with every passing moment he spent living as one of them.

Barnaby, who was as astute a dog as there ever had been, recognised Crowley’s sleepy eyes and stifled yawn as the perfect moment to strike. He hopped up onto the sofa and curled up adorably, eyes wide and bright as he rested his chin against Crowley’s knee, uttering a little yawn of his own that he knew no human or celestial entity could resist. A moment later a hand came to rest against the back of his neck and the dog congratulated himself on a very successful sofa infiltration mission.

“Just need to close my eyes for…” Crowley trailed off, pressing the back of one hand to his mouth as he attempted to stave off another yawn. “…A minute, that’s all. Wake me up in a minute, will you, boy?”

***

Crowley’s eyes snapped open some time later, sunlight filling the room beautifully and, by extension, filling Crowley with dread.

“What time is it?” he cried, as he flung himself off of the sofa. Following the unspoken cue, Barnaby slunk back down to ground level and took up his position by his empty food bowl, tail thumping rhythmically, lest his master think they were going anywhere without a solid meal first.

“I can’t be late, I can’t be late, it’s my first day.” The demon stabbed frantically at the screen of his phone, letting out a little sigh of relief when the clock showed he still had forty minutes before he was due to pick up his first charge of the day. _Perhaps the pre-dawn wake up call was a little over the top,_ he conceded. Barnaby uttered a little bark of frustration, then looked pointedly at his very empty bowl. “Oh, of course. Sorry, boy. Let’s get you some breakfast first, shall we?”

As the big black dog tucked into his big bland breakfast a moment later, Crowley flicked through his phone to locate the weather app to scan the hour by hour forecast for the day ahead. While he waited impatiently for it to load, he looked up and laughed to himself, shaking his head as he slid the phone back into his pocket. A former angel of creation relying on a dubious mobile phone app to describe the weather? A travesty. Realising the old-fashioned way was _usually_ the best way, the demon tugged open the window behind the sofa and thrust his head out to get a feel for the temperature. Mild, with the sort of closeness that meant rain was more than likely before the day was over. Satisfied, he slid Anthony’s trusty dog walking coat off of the rack and slipped it on, hauling the hefty satchel over his shoulder and wincing under the weight of it.

There was just one last thing left to do before he started his grand adventure into the world of human work, stepping into the dream job role he had never imagined would come to pass. Leaving Barnaby whining at the front door, Crowley nudged the bedroom door open with his hip and bustled inside, carefully lowering a plate of toast and a gently steaming cup of tea onto Aziraphale’s bedside table. He paused by the bed, stroking his fingertips through the angel’s soft curls and leaning down to press a kiss to his temple while he slept. _All those months ago I kissed you just like this while I watched you sleep in my bed, and it changed everything, didn’t it, angel?_

Just as he had done in that memory Crowley held so dearly in his mind, Aziraphale stirred, reaching out to grab weakly at the demon’s forearm.

“Are you off then?” he asked, voice slow to wake and deeper than usual, hoarse and unused overnight.

Crowley nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Off to pick up Mac while it’s quiet. Golden retriever, nervous but very sweet, bonded with Barnaby on account of them both being snooty where newcomers are concerned.”

Aziraphale smiled sleepily, eyes half-closed as he reached out to cup Crowley’s face in both hands. “Good luck, my love. I hope you have the very best day. I’ll see you at lunch?”

“I’ll come by the shop when I’ve dropped the last two off, if you can wait that long I can pick us something up on the way.”

“My dear, I waited for this for so many years, I think I have the patience to wait for a late lunch.”

A shared smile of the pleasures of the everyday, one last kiss, and then the demon was gone, his faithful, fluffy shadow pacing alongside him.

***

“What’s the drill, boy, do you come in with me or do you stay outside?” Crowley hovered outside the front door for a moment, looking down at Barnaby and pondering what the standard dog walker protocol might be. In the end, he opted for the safest choice, to keep Barnaby by his side at all times, in case he was taken by a flight of fancy and galloped off into the unknown.

“Doing well for himself,” the demon noted with a low whistle as he entered the house. He scuffed his shoes against the welcome mat and nodded approvingly down at the gleaming parquet flooring that herringboned down the hallway and into the living room, from which a sweet golden retriever came happily ambling out to meet him. Crowley smiled, kneeling down and extending a hand for the dog to sniff. He wasn’t sure if he smelled any different to Anthony, indeed, had never been entirely sure if it was possible for a soul to carry its own scent but, even so, he had spent six thousand years repelling otherwise-jolly canines and he couldn’t help but hold his breath every time he brushed past a dog in the street, just in case his presence led to that heart-sinkingly familiar jump back, followed by a reactive snarl.

Perhaps, he dared to hope, as Mac treated him to a friendly lick on the forearm, it wasn’t down to his short-term rental of Anthony’s body at all, perhaps Aziraphale really had created the sort of paradise where a demon could temporarily moonlight as a dog walker and grow to become adored by every hound in London. That would be paradise indeed.

“Come on then,” he murmured, plucking the dog’s lead off of the coat rack and fastening it to his collar, before calling out for Barnaby, who had disappeared to explore shortly after they’d made it inside. A moment later, the big dog came bounding down the stairs, trailing his lead in his wake, looking all together too innocent not to be guilty of something. Crowley sighed, lacing both leads over the top of the bannister as Barnaby sat obediently in front of him. “What have you done?”

The dog’s tail thumped against the floor. He looked the picture of innocence. Almost. It was his inability to look Crowley directly in the eye that gave it away. Guilty as sin.

“Barnaby?” Crowley asked patiently, leaning against the bannister and very much failing to disguise how much he was enjoying his first proper day of dog ownership. Barnaby could have razed the entire top floor of the house to the ground and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid, might have gone so far as to punish him with a cursory tut, if he was feeling particularly strict. “What did you do?”

After it was clear an answer was not forthcoming, Crowley left the dogs alone and hotfooted it upstairs to scan the rooms for Barnaby-related chaos. As it turned out, it didn’t take him long to discover the perfectly shepherd dog-shaped patch of warmth atop the bed in the master bedroom, complete with a souvenir in the form of a ring of black fur. If the botched clean up job taught Crowley anything, it was that he had relied far, far too heavily on demonic miracles throughout his day to day life. _Have I really never made a bed the human way befpre? There’s so much to learn. So many boring, laborious, energy-draining chores to master,_ he mused, as he jogged down the stairs and deposited Barnaby’s residual fluff into the kitchen bin, before retrieving both dogs and heading back out into the sunshine.

“Lead the way, Mac, where do you fancy going today?”

***

It turned out that Mac had wanted to go absolutely everywhere, all at the exact same time, given the way he had dashed from one side of the pavement to the other, again and again, until Crowley checked his watch and realised it had taken them almost their entire allotted hour together to make their way down precisely four streets. Perhaps leaving the dogs to make _all_ the decisions wasn’t entirely practical. Still, it had given him a little buzz of happiness to see the floppy, fluffy dog look over his shoulder and bark excitedly every time he stumbled across a brand new smell, as if he couldn’t bear for Crowley not to be included in his and Barnaby’s in-depth exploration of Ebury’s streets.

 _Dogs really are the best people_ , he thought to himself, smiling as he watched the two happy hounds bound down the path that led back to Mac’s house, as if they could bid each other farewell safe in the knowledge that the sooner they said goodbye, the sooner the next day’s glorious reunion would come.

With Mac the golden retriever safely returned to his plush abode, it was time for the day’s real work to begin. Though the demon had faced untold challenges throughout his existence, that didn’t stop dread swirling in Crowley’s chest as he began the long walk to pick up his next charges - all five of them. Six dogs at once? It felt like madness. Wonderful, chaotic madness, but madness all the same.

Something he had grown used to rather quickly was the way Barnaby would huddle against his legs if people got too close to them on the street. After the second time a stranger had absentmindedly let their hand graze over his fur and the dog had uttered a low growl of warning, Crowley had realised that, despite his outgoing nature, Barnaby wasn’t a fan of unknown humans. It was a feeling he could relate to entirely too well, that innate distrust of the masses, as if anybody who hadn’t earned his trust was a default enemy, potential danger hiding in plain sight. A lifetime of survival depending on elevated suspicion was a hard state of mind to shake, and Crowley had already had to remind himself multiple times that morning that they were no longer in the old, dangerous world, where to survive was to run, to hide.

 _Did you get that from me, boy?_ he wondered, glancing down at the dog and giving him a reassuring pat on the back, _or am I just looking for things that link us together? Do you remember me, from before? Or do you just see me as him, as a human?_ They were, naturally, questions that would lay unanswered for eternity, which gave Crowley creative license to decide that _of course_ Barnaby remembered him from the old world, had come to think of him as his first master, the one who had first showed him love and affection and the importance of extra treats on Christmas day.

“Why do they all have to be so spread out? Somebody needs to have a word with him about his logistics,” Crowley lamented, dragging a hand across his damp forehead and swallowing a retch at the hideous moisture of ever-leaking humans. He had been tramping his way across the city for near enough an hour and he hadn’t even made it to the next pick up point, where he would be retrieving only one of Verity’s regal wolfhounds, Impa, given that Midna was housebound with a sore ankle after chasing a rabbit across the heath a little too enthusiastically that previous weekend.

***

“Hello, Anthony, love. Come in, come in, I’ve got some cakes for you to take back for you both.” Tracy leaned forward to plant a kiss on Crowley’s cheek, patting him on the shoulder as she encouraged him to step inside the house, leaving Barnaby and Impa to canter down the hallway in search of a grumpy ex-sergeant to harangue. She smelled like jasmine and mandarin, and the scent, as sweet and warm as it was, was enough to leave Crowley pouting as he descended into childish jealousy. “Come on, dear, try one while they’re fresh.”

_We meet again, adversary. Do you remember the last time we met? Oh, I do. Meeting the only other person the love of your life has been inside, you don’t forget that in a hurry. I’m onto you, Medium, however hard you try to buy me off with cakes and…_

“Bloody hell.” Crowley all but swooned as the soft, buttery sponge gave way to a sharp tang of berry that burst to life on his tongue. Then came the buttercream, rich and smooth, the perfect balance to the tart jam. It was, he had to admit, the best cake he had ever eaten in his entire millennia-long existence. And he had spent a great deal of time in Aziraphale’s company, which meant he had sampled more than his fair share of cakes over the centuries.

Tracy beamed with all the satisfaction of a mother hen whose morning of baking had been a rip-roaring success. It was a well-known fact, of course, that the best part about baking was getting to share it with loved ones who would inevitably declare that batch of cakes _the best you’ve ever made_.

“You baked these…for us?” Crowley felt an unexpected surge of emotion in his chest as he looked around the neat little kitchen, found two racks of miniature Victoria sandwich cakes ready to be packed into the waiting tupperware.

It was such a simple thing on the surface, the gift of a few cakes, but when Tracy nodded with a little laugh and began packing them into the dish so Crowley could take them home, the demon had to look away and bite the inside of his cheek.

“Thank you, Tracy, for these. That’s so…that’s so _nice_ of you.” It had always been one of the demon’s least favourite four-letter words, one he had always thought of as the most boring, at least. In that moment, though, as he pulled Tracy into a hug and near enough lifted the little astrologer off of her feet, _nice_ had never seemed like a lovelier word.

“Oh, not to worry, love. You’re family, you boys, I wouldn’t sleep if I thought you might be going hungry.”

 _Family_. There was that word again. Unconventional, chosen, wonderful family. _Maybe family really is what we never knew we needed_ , Crowley thought to himself, feeling the comforting weight of a box of cakes weighing down his satchel as he left the Shadwells’, dogs in tow, a wide smile on his face.

***

It had been some time since Crowley had stood within heaven’s gates and felt comfort. Indeed, it had been so long he could barely remember what being in heaven even felt like. It had also been some time since he had broken into a run purely because he wanted to, had always preferred to take life at a more sedate pace. In fact, the last time he remembered running for pleasure had been in that very park as he had run into Aziraphale’s arms on that beautiful day when they had finally taken hold of each other and pledged to never let go.

On that particular sunny day in St James’s Park, however, as the demon ran to and fro across the grass with a pack of six boisterous dogs galloping beside him, Crowley began to wonder if Aziraphale hadn’t brought them to a new world at all and had, instead, transported them directly to heaven.

His shirt was dotted with muddy pawprints, his hair was firmly slicked to his forehead, and stray blades of grass clung to the knees of his jeans, accompanied by bright green grass stains, which had come about after Barnaby and Thor realised they could very easily indulge in a tag team scenario and trip their good-natured dog walker up as he raced after Impa. The demon was sticky-palmed after throwing his rapidly depleting collection of tennis balls again and again until all of them, canine and celestial, had to stop to catch their breath, Crowley doubled over as he panted right along with the dogs. Six happy faces looked up at him, mouths open, tongues lolling as they let out little barks of excitement at the realisation that now play time was over, treat time couldn’t be far behind, and Crowley was only too happy to indulge his fluffy army of sidekicks.

The demon beamed up at the sky as he was jolted forward by the collective tug at six leads, the dogs letting him know it was, regrettably, time to leave. Still, there would be tomorrow, and however many days he had to stand in for his human counterpart. While the incessant showering and hand washing and cleaning was already becoming bothersome, the dog walking was an entirely differently story. _Who could ever want more than this,_ Crowley wondered, as he let Barnaby and the gang pull him away from the park, _sunshine and laughter and a bag heavy with freshly baked cakes, and the love of your life waiting for you at the end of the day?_

***

“What do you think, boy, did I do okay on my first day?” Crowley looked down at Barnaby, smiling as the dog blinked up at him. That had to serve as agreement, didn’t it?

He had dropped the other dogs off, exhausted but exhilarated, at their respective homes after the lunchtime sojourn around the park, and turned his attention to the afternoon’s engagement: helping Aziraphale at the shop.

It was a blessing in disguise that Anthony had noticed a quieter than usual start to the year where the web design side of his business was concerned, which equated to far less potential for Crowley to cause his bank account to take too much of a hit. Except for the bath bombs, but those were a one off expense, the demon was sure of it.

It had been a very strange day, all things considered, and that was quite a remarkable feat, given that the vast majority of Crowley’s days had been rather strange indeed. Life as a demon and all that, it didn’t lend itself to a great degree of normality. Still, that day had been strange but for all the right reasons, for once.

There had been that blissful moment before he had left the flat, where he had sat on the bed and stroked Aziraphale’s hair, felt the angel’s hand grip his arm as he tenderly wished him a good day at work. That tiny moment they shared should have been so forgettable, such a part of everyday life that it barely registered as something remarkable. But for the demon who had spent six thousand years craving anything resembling normality, every moment of the mundane was remarkable, in its own quiet way.

His first day of masquerading as a human with a job and rent to pay and an ever-evolving list of adult responsibilities had really begun with the morning walk with Barnaby and Mac, the nervous golden retriever who had been content to stay safely close to him, to explore as far as he was comfortable without being pushed any further than he was ready to stray. _Don’t worry, boy,_ Crowley had thought, as the dog had taken a few tentative steps back towards his home after a pigeon had flown too close for his liking, _you’re safe with me, we’ll go as slow as you need to._

Next, of course, there had been the trip to the Shadwell house, where his opinion of Tracy had done a very abrupt 180 the second she had foisted cakes and warmth and love upon him. He was a fickle demon, as it turned out, only needed a sweet treat and a hug to recover from a deeply-held perceived slight. _Shame heaven never considered baking and physical affection as a method of resolving conflict,_ he thought with a wry smile, picturing the archangel Gabriel donning a fetching apron as he whisked eggs in a bowl.

The strangest part of all, Crowley decided, was the stacked keyring that Anthony kept in his work bag, strung with keys of all shapes and sizes that fitted doors that led to sweet little flats in Brixton, or grand mews houses in Ebury, or well-loved two up, two downs in Islington. These people, who must have been strangers to him once upon a time, trusted him enough to give him access to their home. It was something he had wrestled with every time he had let himself into somebody else’s home that day, as if he would be caught out soon enough, as though his secret would be up and his soul would be laid bare, something twisted and dark and innately untrustworthy. That day was perhaps the first time in six thousand years that anybody other than Aziraphale had ever placed an iota of trust in him. It felt good, he realised, to be trusted.

Crowley smiled to himself as he walked through Soho’s familiar streets, albeit more heavily populated with sushi restaurants than before, and let his feet carry him back to the bookshop, or the latest iteration of it, at least.

It had been a very good day indeed.

***

“Crowley, is that you? Thank heavens you’re here, it’s been a terrible day.” Aziraphale’s voice rang out from the back room and Crowley swallowed a chuckle, unclipping Barnaby’s lead and watching as the dog dashed off to smell absolutely everything in sight. After all, it was the first time he had visited since the fire and the new-look Z. Fell and Co. was filled with hundreds of new smells to discover. “I’m back here, will you come through? I need your help. _He’s been selling books._ ”

“Yes, angel, I believe that’s entirely the point of being a bookseller.” Crowley made his way into the back room of the shop, collapsing into an uncomfortably unworn chair and giving it a good, hard glare. Gone was his favourite armchair, the one he’d nestled into on so many hundreds of evenings that it had come to conform to the contours of his body. He sighed, feeling the tough structure of the interloper in its place, and wondered how many hundreds of evenings it might take until that one began to feel like home. He caught himself then, gently reminded himself that he wouldn’t be there for many hundreds of evenings, perhaps just a handful, that it would be his human counterpart who would sit there in his place, sipping wine and watching the flames dance merrily in the fireplace.

“Good morning at work then, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, sticking his head up from behind an angel-height stack of books that Zira had failed to organise after they’d been shipped up from the very successful auction he and Anthony had attended in Cornwall.

Crowley leaned his head back against the unyielding cushioning of the chair, closing his eyes against the discomfort and sighing happily, his enthusiasm for the day far outweighing his irritation at losing his favourite chair. “The best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it customary...happy hump day, chums! I hope you're having a very delightful Wednesday and you've all had a lovely week so far - and if not, I hope the second half of the week is much kinder to you.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed Crowley's first day as a productive member of society...next up we find out how Aziraphale got on during his first day as an online bookseller, perish the thought!
> 
> The next updates will be:
> 
> Friday 21st: Chapter nine  
> Wednesday 26th: Chapter ten
> 
> In case you haven't had a chance to listen yet, I just want to take another moment to scream about the Ineffably Yours podfic, which is being published at the moment here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22483684/chapters/53724280
> 
> The first fifteen chapters are already up for you to listen to and I cannot shout enough about how incredible it is! You'll recognise all of the readers from either the Ineffably Yours comment section or their own amazing works and I'm so excited you all get to listen to this, as I've been swooning over it since they presented it to me on my birthday in December (cannot possibly overstate how much I cried 😂😭). I'm in the process of recording a couple of chapters for it myself so you should hear the first one of those in the next few weeks...!
> 
> Anyway, hope you're all well and I'll see you on Friday or even sooner in the comment section <3


	9. I Want to Break Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s a nightmare, Crowley, I’m telling you. Not only do I have to sell books, I have to do it online.”

**April. Z. Fell and Co., Soho.**

While Crowley had been cavorting (slowly) through London’s streets that morning beside Barnaby and Mac, the timid golden retriever, the heaviest weight on his mind was whether he should bestow the dogs with the treats in his left pocket, which promised to give them gleaming coats, or those in his right, which promised healthy teeth and gums.

Conversely, Aziraphale had much bigger problems. Mainly, the horrifying realisation that to stick to his pledge to not accidentally destroy Zira’s life meant he would have to, at some point or another, do the unthinkable and sell a book.

He had spent hundreds of years safeguarding his collection and, despite the fact _his_ collection was no longer in tact thanks to the small hurdles of both the rapture and the bookshop fire, the idea of letting even one book go felt, at best, soul-crushing and, at the more dramatic end of the spectrum, akin to a cardinal sin, and Aziraphale was one angel who knew a lot about sin.

Deciding to ignore the reality of bookselling for a little while longer (after all, he had been ignoring it for two hundred years so what was another few hours in the scheme of things?), Aziraphale took himself on a tour of the new look Z. Fell and Co..

The first thing that unsettled him was the smell. Gone was the comforting musty aroma of old books that he thought might have imprinted itself into the very foundations of the place, replaced instead by the industrial whiff of plaster and paint, things that were new and soulless. Still, it was better than smelling of charcoal and ruin, he supposed, calling his mind back from the memory of that night when smoke had filled Zira's bookshop and he had felt so powerless, so small. He could have stopped the fire in an instant, could have saved every one of those stories, but there were bigger things to save than a single bookshop, though it had devastated him to watch it burn, all of that history turned to ash, the only real memento he had brought with him to the new world.

It was disconcertingly tidy inside the shop. Tidier, in fact, than Aziraphale had ever seen it, even before he purchased the building in the old world. Still, it made sense that the shop was so tidy, given that Zira had only spent a week living there before he had come to his senses (aided by a _gentle_ nudge from his angelic conscience) and hotfooted it across London to make amends with the man who he would spend the rest of his days loving in every wild and wonderful way that he could. While the tidiness was off-putting, felt far too clinical for a bookshop, a place that should hold adventure and mystery around every corner, Aziraphale did appreciate that it gave him a blank canvas to work with. Rearranging the books in his collection, _ahem_ , inventory, had always been one of the angel’s favourite ways to wile away a few hours, so after he had finished exploring the little flat above the shop, he turned his attention to the main event: the books themselves.

It didn’t seem as though Zira had got much further than dragging boxes of books into the centre of the shop floor, though there was a rather precarious stack of noteworthy titles piled up in the back room, which Aziraphale planned on scouring before the day was out, just in case he needed to borrow anything particularly interesting before the books made it onto the shelves.

To have so many boxes of books to unpack, to discover, to lovingly place upon the shelves, nestled beside their perfect complementary counterparts, now _that_ was part of the job Aziraphale was more than happy to get on board with. None of that _selling_ malarky, none of that…

_Ding._

A cheery little note echoed around the empty shop and Aziraphale cast an accusing glare at his phone, which he had fully intended to leave at the flat that morning but had slipped into his pocket at the last moment, just in case Crowley needed to contact him about a lunch-related emergency.

 _Blasted thing,_ he thought to himself, shaking his head as he returned to the books. Alas, no sooner had the box cutter swept neatly through the packaging tape holding the box closed than the sound came trilling through the silence again. And that time, it brought company.

_Ding._

_Ding._

_Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding._

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Aziraphale hissed, hauling himself to his feet and brushing sawdust from his trousers as he stalked over to the recently-installed cash desk to retrieve his phone, feeling his heart sink as he took in the plethora of notifications filling the screen.

_You have: One new order_

_You have: One new order_

_You have…_

“Yes, yes, one new order, I get the picture.” The angel heaved a heavy sigh, wondering which book he was destined to say goodbye to, before unlocking the phone on his third attempt and squinting at the device. He had been taken to a screen that asked him to input a username and password. Not his strongest suit, admittedly. Still, the username field was easy enough, given that it was pre-filled with what he presumed was Zira’s e-mail address. Just the password field to go then. How hard could it be? He and Zira were near enough one and the same, surely he could crack the code.

_Password: Books_

Aziraphale smiled as he tapped the screen. That had to be it, didn’t it? It was precisely what _he_ would have used, after all.

_The username or password you entered is incorrect. Please try again. Two login attempts remaining._

Aziraphale felt sweat dampen his brow as his heart thrummed in his chest. Oh, so there were high stakes involved. That changed everything. Only two more attempts or…what would happen? _How am I supposed to know this? It’s…it’s too hard. There are too many possibilities, how is anybody supposed to guess a password?_ Ignoring the irritating realisation that that was _entirely_ the point of a password, he racked his brain to try and come up with something that might be viable. Now, what was Zira a particular fan of? The thought hit him like a lightning bolt. Of course!

_Password: Crepes_

_The username or password you entered is incorrect. Please try again. One login attempt remaining._

_Oh no, oh no, oh no._ Aziraphale closed his eyes, placed the phone back on the desk and tried to steady his breathing. The pressure was on. _I don’t need this, not on my first day,_ the angel thought to himself frantically, wondering what terrible repercussions would be waiting if he squandered that one last login attempt. And then it came to him, what did Zira love more than books and crepes? There was only one thing he could think of.

_Password: AnthonyJCrowley_

_The username or password you entered is incorrect. Your account has been locked due to multiple failed login attempts. Please contact the website administrator._

Aziraphale felt white hot dread turn to ice in his veins as he read the notification aloud in a voice that trembled with every cursed word he spoke. He had been in the shop for less than two hours and had already irrevocably destroyed Zira’s entire career. Worst of all, there was nobody else in the vicinity whose door he could possibly lay the blame at. It was time to face facts, he really was the _worst_ bookseller in existence, and that time the moniker didn’t feel like a positive trait.

 _What have I done? What have I done? Oh, Zira, I’m so terribly sorry. I will find a way to fix this. You can’t be locked out forever, can you? I only got it wrong three times. That’s nothing at all. You can’t punish somebody for tripping up three times, that’s barbaric._ Aziraphale paused then, cast a pointed glance heavenward, before falling silent and doing the only thing he could think to do in times of extreme stress: he retreated to the kitchen for a rejuvenating cup of tea, accompanied by a plate of comfort biscuits.

***

By the time midday rolled around Aziraphale had almost recovered from the bracing run-in with technology. The tea had worked wonders, as it always did, and the biscuits had provided enough of a sugar rush to sustain him until Crowley was due to arrive in a short while. To pass the time, he had returned to the shop floor to finish unpacking the box of books he had started on earlier.

As he lovingly pored over each and every title, beginning to formulate some sort of coherent order on the shelves, he couldn’t help but stop and smile at the familiar titles, happy to see them return to the shop, even if they were a slightly different edition to those he had held in the old world. Then there were the other titles, the ones that were a mystery to him, those stories he hadn’t yet discovered but was keen to learn more about. Some he cast a dubious glance over, pondered what Zira’s thought process could possibly have been when he’d deemed them a must-have for the shop, while others were met with a little chuckle and a nod of approval, proof that the Zira-shaped apple didn’t fall far from the Aziraphale-shaped tree. Then, on occasion, there would be a book that would stop him in his tracks, something so intrinsically linked to his past that he had to take a moment to flick through the pages, to read snatches of the story and fall into fond recollection.

The copy of Candide had taken him by delighted surprise, nestled unassumingly near the bottom of the box, but he had let out an exclamation of joy as he pulled it free and held it close, one palm brushing across the cloth cover as he’d closed his eyes and slipped into those warm memories of the past. Of all the books Zira and Anthony had brought back from the auction, _that_ was the one that undoubtedly had Crowley’s interference all over it.

 _If you could see us now,_ Aziraphale thought, thumb running across Voltaire’s name, embossed grandly on the spine of the book, golden and proud and enduring even after all of those years. Fitting, of course. _Did you know? I’ve always wondered. I mean, did you really know? If anyone had ever come close to knowing our story, I’m sure it would have been you, you damned fiend. I wish you could have known the role you played in this, all of this. All the trouble you and Crowley caused me, what a pair you were. We loved you dearly, both of us did. I hope you knew that, in the end._

There were others, of course, besides the rebellious Frenchman, whose stories could send Aziraphale time-travelling back to memories so specific he could still taste the meals they ate together, smell the scent of perfumed smoke in the air, hear the chatter and bickering and the laughter, oh, so much laughter. As time had ticked by and heaven had grown more watchful, he had been forced to take a step back, to hold distance as a buffer between himself and humanity. Friends had lived and died, and were replaced by acquaintances, and after they too had passed on, they were replaced by nobody at all, just strangers the angel might exchange a nod with as they passed in the street.

He missed them, those who he had called friends once upon a time. Heaven’s only angel who had ever missed humans, he expected. It had hurt, to give up on friendship as heaven had become a darker place, as if simply being his friend might somehow put them at risk, as if Gabriel might note his acquaintances and deny them entry when the time came, just because he could. There was one friendship, of course, that he had never given up on, whatever the cost. Friendship set on fire, that had always been the phrase that came to mind when he thought of what he and Crowley had. Even in the beginning it was something smoking and sparking, rising up and flickering with temptation, spreading out and around him until it felt as though the intensity might choke him.

It had been just the two of them for so many years and he had convinced himself that that was the way it should be, that all they really needed was each other. If he was honest, though, he would admit that they weren’t alone by choice, that it was solitude borne out of necessity. It had been a comfort to have friends, people to share memories with, familiar faces to visit, places where he could relax, just a little, sometimes even have fun. If Crowley was there too then fun was a foregone conclusion, had always accompanied the demon with every step he took. The mutual friends they had shared over the centuries, they had always been just the ticket to afford them reasons to spend time together. Even when their love felt like a hopeless dream, Crowley had made sure there was still fun to be had, laughter to be shared, as that, after all, was the cornerstone of any friendship, smouldering or otherwise.

Aziraphale wasn’t sure that he was quite ready to dip his toe back into the world of making friends, not just yet, not until he knew they were safe, all of them, that he had done his job to protect those he had sworn to watch over. But perhaps, when the work was done, he could grow to enjoy friendship once again.

***

“It’s a nightmare, Crowley, I’m telling you. Not only do I have to sell books, I have to do it _online_. You know how I feel about the internet. It’s against me, it always has been.” Aziraphale paced up and down the back room, eyes trained on the demon who had slumped haphazardly in an armchair shortly after arriving with Barnaby in tow. “Crowley, are you even listening to me?”

Crowley shrugged, refusing to get tugged into Aziraphale’s drama spiral, and waved a chicken and avocado sandwich in his direction. “Calm down, angel. Have a sandwich. You’re probably just hangry.”

“Hangry?” The angel stopped, fists clenched, and sighed, as if he had far better things to do than fall for one of Crowley’s linguistic tricks. Again.

“Yes, hangry.” The demon grinned, tossed the sandwich to Aziraphale as the angel relented and sat down for lunch. “Fun little portmanteau of hungry and angry, and a feeling I think you’re already becoming well-acquainted with.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale smiled softly, taking a bite of his sandwich and letting out a little moan of appreciation. “Oh, that is quite lovely. Hangry. I like it.”

“Mmm. Thought you might. So, did you do _anything_ helpful this morning or did you just fret for five hours about the idea of selling a book?”

“I unpacked three boxes of books, thank you very much, and you would do well to admire my handiwork before we leave. All those shelves, positively groaning under the weight of literary excellence. I thought I’d better slow down, though, to be honest. If I keep this up the shop will be ready to be reopened far too soon.”

Crowley fixed him with a curious look. “Isn’t that a good thing? Business will be booming by the time we hand back the reins, make up for yesterday’s shopping spree.”

Aziraphale chuckled, let out a sigh that was laced with embarrassment at his own predictable softness. “It was one of my proudest moments, you know, opening the shop; putting the final touches in place, deciding on the displays, and then watching my name be painted there, plain as day, as the owner of it all.”

“You looked so happy, I remember.” Crowley reached out, curled his hand around Aziraphale’s. He’d been there, of course, had known how important it was to the angel. He’d arrived with flowers, chocolates, all the material ways you say congratulations to a friend when they achieve a dream. Funny, though, that it was Gabriel himself who had got to Aziraphale first, a poorly-timed venture down to Earth to discuss business, leaving Crowley hiding outside, flower bouquet in hand, lip curling at the sight of the archangel after all of that time. He’d returned to the shop later that day, of course, armed with wine and temptation, and then they had celebrated properly.

Aziraphale ran his thumb down the length of Crowley’s hand, smiling absent-mindedly as he thought back to the night, the way the demon’s eyes had watched him as he’d poured their wine, the warmth of Crowley’s lips against his neck, all of the promises they had made in the heady rush of adrenaline that accompanied the achievement of a dream. The next dream, the biggest one of all, had felt within reach, for once.

“It was a good day, wasn’t it, angel?” Crowley leaned across the table, met the angel’s lips in a kiss, and then another, to make up for the one that had been missing from that day two hundred years ago.

“And an even better night.” Aziraphale laughed. “It was special, that moment. I don’t want to rob him of it. No, he should be the one to reopen the shop, to feel that pride in himself. It’s his dream now.”

 _You sweet soul,_ Crowley thought, eyes roving over Aziraphale’s lips as they curved into a smile, thinking fondly of how Zira might decorate the shop for the grand reopening, how excited he would be to open the doors once again, to let the light pour in and send those stories on their way, ready to be discovered by new hands.

“We’ll get it ready for him then,” the demon announced, clapping a hand against the table. “Then when we bid the little ones farewell all he’ll have to do is plan the launch party. We can do it, can’t we, angel? You’ve done it once before.”

The angel smiled “ _We_? That sounds infinitely more fun than trying to do it alone. Besides, I think I might need your help with the er, _online_ side of things, you being the technical one and all.”

“Technical?” Crowley wrinkled his nose, patting the phone in his phone. “I’m not very au fait if it goes much further than ordering junk food on a phone. Afraid we might need to rope in a professional for that.”

“You _are_ the professional,” Aziraphale pointed out. “Supposed to be, at least. Either way, you’re far more au fait with it all than I am. I’ve already locked him out of something or other because I don’t know his password. Why would I know his password, for heaven’s sake? You have to help me, Crowley. It said only the website administer can help me. How am I supposed to track them down? They could be anywhere.”

Crowley gave him a look, one that might have caused lesser beings to wither where they sat. “All that time you had to watch him and you didn’t even think to memorise his passwords in case we ever needed them?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes as he attempted to steady his nerves, chin jutting forward in frustration. “No, Crowley, obviously I didn’t, did I?”

“Well, it would have made this a hell of a lot easier if you…”

“Yes, I’m sure it would have! Look, are you going to help me, yes or no?”

“Yes, yes, fine. It’ll give me something to do when the dogs are occupied, I suppose. Oh, and before you burst a blood vessel, I’m pretty sure you’re looking at the site administrator, so you can stop clutching the sandwich in your death grip of panic and relax.”

“I _am_ relaxed. Surrounded by books, how could I be anything but relaxed? Observe how relaxed I am.” Aziraphale took another bite from his sandwich, pasting on a fake smile to show Crowley just how relaxed he was.

“Positively zen.” The demon raised an eyebrow. “Good timing, all this. Anthony had been complaining about work being a bit quiet, hadn’t he?”

“Well, I’m sure Zira would want his opinion on how things run around here anyway. He cares, you know, about what he thinks. He cares about him rather a lot, in fact.”

“Mmm. For what it’s worth Anthony’s the same. Soppy gits, the pair of them.” Crowley looked up from his phone, where he was tapping away in an attempt to release Zira’s account from the digital prison Aziraphale had landed it in. “Done, I’ve reset your password. It’s SergeantSnakeHips666, thought you might remember that one.”

Aziraphale smiled, batting Crowley on the arm. “Soppy gits, indeed. Where in the world do they get it from?”

***

As the working day drew to a close, an angel and a demon had settled into a peaceful routine of checking the online orders that had come into the website that day, sourcing the books from their hiding places in various boxes, and then packing them up ready to be taken to the post office. If Aziraphale thought of the collection strictly as Zira’s, kept his own emotions out of proceedings, it become rather a fun process, working together to get the books ready to be sent to their new homes.

Crowley had set the tone by blasting Queen throughout the empty shop, the two of them taking a little dance break between packing up orders, while Barnaby had a well-earned snooze on one of the armchairs in the back room, nestled peacefully under a blanket.

“Treasure Island, did you say?” Crowley asked, eyeing a stack of books that were teetering on the edge of the desk.

“Yes, my dear. Burgundy cover, not the navy.”

Crowley nodded, reaching out to pull the book free from the pile. Before his hand could make contact, however, a tremor shook through the bookshop and sent the stack of books toppling down to the ground. The demon snatched his hand back, blinking down at the titles that were strewn across the floor as Barnaby's frantic barking echoed out from the back room.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called, rushing across to the desk, eyes wide as he reached for the demon’s arm. “Did you feel that?”

As the angel’s fingers curled around his forearm, it was if a surge of Aziraphale’s panic transferred to him. Crowley felt his chest tighten, and he looked up at Aziraphale in dismay. “What was that?”

Another tremor came then, the desk screeching across the wooden floor with the force of it. Three books tumbled down from a shelf behind them and, outside in the street, there was a scream from a passerby as the sky darkened overhead, as intense as it was sudden.

There was time for a flash of fear, a twist of anxiety in the gut as it felt like _something_ was about to happen. And then it stopped. The ground beneath their feet calmed and the black clouds seemed to dissolve away, leaving the sky as blue and clear as if they might all have imagined the feeling of darkness.

“Angel,” Crowley whispered, taking Aziraphale’s hand and giving it a squeeze of reassurance. “What’s happening?”

Aziraphale looked up at him, swallowing tightly. Suddenly the bookshop didn't feel like such a safe haven any more. “I...I think he’s trying to drive us out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, we made it to the weekend! I hope you all enjoyed this one, the next publication dates are:
> 
> Weds 26th: Chapter 10  
> Weds 4th: Chapter 11
> 
> Next time we check in with our celestial duo at the end of their first working week...!
> 
> I hope you have a lovely few days and I'll catch you in the comments <3


	10. Survival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you ever noticed how many of our most memorable moments have been centred around food?”

**Heaven.**

“Blessed day, archangel.” The words slid from Gabriel’s mouth, a slur of speech dripping from his lips. He leaned across the desk, head bent low, shoulders high and pointed like mountain peaks, jagged lines that were little more than wasted flesh stretched across bone. A stench too, carried on his breath, sour with decay and corruption.

“It is, Gabriel, yes.” Opposite him, the archangel Raphael smiled thinly, hands clasped in their lap as they nodded pleasantly. Their expression was impassive, bordering on vacant. An affectation of naivety, of course. It had always been the safest way to navigate heaven, milling from task to task like a dispassionate worker bee, silent and inscrutable.

“Aren’t you-” Gabriel paused, wiping a lick of drool from the corner of his mouth, rubbing the stained sleeve of his robe against his skin until it flared pink. “Aren’t you going to ask me why it’s such a blessed day?”

“Look around you, Lord Gabriel, all of our days are blessed. We are in heaven, after all.” The archangel spotted the narrowing of Gabriel’s eyes, the tightening of cracked fingernails around the edge of the desk. “But, please, do tell me why today is so special.”

Gabriel laughed, a shrill sound that left Raphael thinking only of darkness. “We have found them, those two who would forsake the Almighty.”

 _No._ Raphael felt a fist grip their chest, clenching tight, squeezing out the hope they had quietly held there since the day of the rapture. _No, please. Mother, you can’t let him find them. I prayed to you, I begged you to keep them hidden._

Scouring the archangel’s face for weakness and finding a flicker of something that satisfied him, Gabriel turned to pace slowly around the office, keeping his eyes fixed on Raphael as he walked to and fro. He seemed to come unstuck, unfurling to stand straight and proud, as if he had drawn sanity from the revelation, as if Raphael’s despair was fuel. “Weak, the signal, admittedly. But do you know something, Raphael? I think we finally agree on something. What is it you’re so fond of saying…that none of us ever stops learning? I’ve been watching them, you know, humans. It’s quite remarkable what they’ll do to survive.”

Gabriel paused then, time to sink back down in the chair and rasp in a gulping breath, his strength dissipating as quickly as it had arrived, the tank all but running on empty.

“I always thought he spent so long walking among them that he became more human than divine in the end. The angel, of course. The demon? He was always…defective, never right to serve Her. So many years on Earth, inevitable that they wouldn’t pick up a few tricks from the Almighty’s…lesser creations. The vermin, the pests, the things that hide away. Did you watch humanity in the early days, Raphael, did you watch as they hunted and fought to survive?”

Raphael nodded. There were no words to say. Nothing to do but wait and listen and hope that all of Gabriel’s peacocking was nothing more than bluster, an attempt to assert himself to distract from another failure.

“Ingenious, the ways humans learned to survive on nothing but the Almighty’s creations. In the old days, of course, before they grew comfortable and lazy, before they gave up on all of that potential She gave them. They were hunters once, did you know that? Did you watch them as they flushed out vermin, forced it to show itself, to sign its own death warrant? Sometimes all they had to do was pursue their prey until it was too weak to go on.”

“You don’t know where they are,” Raphael murmured, voice soft but steady as they rose from their chair, bearing down on Gabriel, unafraid as that strain of hope returned. “If you had found them they would already be destroyed.”

“How do you know, Raphael, that I haven’t come here today to tell you that good news myself?”

“Because I have known you, Gabriel, for as long as you have walked these halls. You would have forced me to watch.” Raphael swallowed, curled their hands into fists so Gabriel couldn’t see them tremble. “Like the last time you destroyed everything I loved.”

“Now, now, Raphael, does it look as though I have time for reminiscing?” A thick, wet tongue ran along two rows of teeth, incongruously bright in that dark slice of a mouth. “Enjoyable as that would be.”

“What are you really doing, Gabriel, that has turned you into…this?”

The archangel leaned in close, as though he needed Raphael to hear every word he hissed. “I’m taking my lead from the humans, Raphael. I’m flushing out the vermin. And I’m building an army, archangel, for when the time comes to strike. Didn’t you hear? The end is nigh. There are wars to be won.”

Gabriel held their gaze, waiting for a glint of fear, and then, unsatisfied, swept out of the office, leaving a cloud of dank fog in his wake. His footsteps stopped suddenly and Raphael heard his voice in the corridor.

“Remiel, what are you doing lurking out here?”

Another voice answered, light and enthusiastic, accompanied by a quiet rustle of parchment. “I have a message, Lord Gabriel, for the archangel Raphael.”

“Be quick about it then.”

There was the sound of a dull thump, a shoulder colliding with a body, and then the angel Remiel crept into Raphael’s office, head bowed and expression meek as they kept their eyes trained to the ground. The angel paused in the doorway until Gabriel’s footsteps faded away, then he straightened up and pressed the door closed, testing it once, twice to be sure it was tightly shut.

He turned to Raphael, dropping an empty scroll of parchment onto their desk and raising an eyebrow as he nodded over his shoulder towards the door Gabriel had just stalked out of. “So?”

Raphael’s eyes darted to the door, then the corners of their lips twitched as they slid an old, battered biscuit tin across the desk. They smiled down at it fondly, then looked up at the angel standing in front of them. “Sit down, Remi, we have work to do. But first, would you like a biscuit?”

***

**April. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

Crowley unbuttoned his jeans, tugging the fly down and patting his flat stomach. Next to him, Aziraphale rolled his eyes.

“Nugget?” the demon asked, offering the angel the last morsel of the McDonald’s they’d spent the evening munching their way through.

“Go on then.”

“I told you this was a better idea than cooking.” Crowley paused to suck the last remnants of a banana milkshake through a straw, before flopping back on the sofa, sighing contentedly. “Who has the energy to cook on a Friday night?”

“Indeed.” Aziraphale nodded, pursing his lips as he glanced guiltily towards the kitchen. “That salmon though, Crowley, we really should have cooked it today. It’s wasteful.”

Crowley shrugged, waving away his concern with one hand, ever in favour of a more laissez-faire attitude towards fish on a Friday. “Oh, it’ll keep another day, angel.”

“Mmm. We’ll see.” The angel was not convinced. Still, after his fifth consecutive day of working to get the bookshop in order, the idea of returning to the flat to cook a meal (from _scratch_ , no less) had rendered him close to hysterical. No, far better for the stress levels to give themselves a little treat to celebrate the end of a very successful first week of flying under the radar. Crowley was insistent that the biggest threat to humanity’s future happiness was stress and, as such, was doing everything in his non-miraculous power to ensure the two of them had a stress-free stopover in the land of the living. Onto happier things than panicking about eating fish after its use by date, the angel decided. He reached out to stroke Crowley’s arm. “Crowley, do you remember the first time I ever tried McDonald’s?”

_I would follow you anywhere._

The demon smiled, turned to press his forehead to the angel’s temple, his lips grazing Aziraphale’s ear. “I could never forget that night, angel. There was no way back, not after that.”

“It’s funny,” Aziraphale said, pausing to catch Crowley’s lips in a kiss, as bold and sweet as that night had been. “After everything we’ve been through, every moment that split existence into _before_ and _after_ , that night feels like the most pivotal night of them all.”

“Of course it does. Nobody forgets their first McNugget.”

The angel laughed, head thrown back as he let out a cackle of absolute joy, before reaching for a pillow to bop against Crowley’s perfectly coiffed hair. It was something that hadn’t gone unnoticed, the amount of time the demon would spend preening his locks in front of the mirror until they looked artfully dishevelled. By the time Aziraphale was finished with the cushion there was nothing artful about it, just plain dishevelled.

Crowley caught the angel’s forearm, tugging him forward until they were nose to nose. He narrowed his eyes, almost furious, but the lazy smile spreading across his face betrayed him. “What the hell was that for?”

Aziraphale jutted his chin up just enough for their lips to touch, a tried and tested move he had favoured for near enough two millennia, the closest they had come to a kiss until desire had won out. “I was trying to lure you into taking a trip down memory lane with me and all you could think about was food.”

“I thought after six thousand years it might be time for role reversal. Keep things interesting, you know?” Words soft against the angel’s lips, the demon slowly, achingly trailed his fingers from the nape of Aziraphale’s neck up into his hair, fingertips lost amongst the curls.

The angel closed his eyes, felt a tug of desire in the pit of his stomach as Crowley’s other hand came to rest against his chest. A hint of skin against skin, that was all it took, still, after all of those years. “I think you might be right, Crowley, our lives are sorely lacking anything _interesting_ at the moment, aren’t they?”

“Such sarcasm.” His tongue brushed against the angel’s lips and then, after a moment of nothing but the sound of breaths heavy with longing, he pulled away. “So sorry to derail you, angel, so rude of me. What were you saying?”

“I…” Aziraphale trailed off, blinking as he shook his head, attempting to refocus his thoughts. “I have absolutely no idea.”

As Aziraphale floundered to recapture his train of thought, Crowley smiled to himself, wondering if a day would ever come when he would tire of being able to pull the angel’s focus with a single kiss. _Impossible_ , he reasoned, _we could be sitting here, well, not here, somewhere more ethereal, sitting somewhere, anyway. Wait, what was I even… Oh, right, we could be sitting in an unspecified location in six thousand years and I would still feel the same thrill as I do in this very moment. Well, not in this very moment, the same thrill I felt…thirty seconds ago? Probably more like a minute. Okay. We could be sitting in an unspecified location in six thousand years and I would still feel the same thrill as I did precisely one minute ago. Got there in the end._

“Oh!” Aziraphale cried, slapping one hand against Crowley’s thigh, startling the demon out of his chaotic train of thought. “I was talking about food.”

“Really?” Crowley scrambled onto his knees, turning to face Aziraphale and bringing his hands up to frame either side of his face in a tableau of shock. “You? Talking about food? Whatever next?”

“ _Stop it_.” Aziraphale laughed, pushing his chest until he cascaded backwards, flopping back against the arm of the sofa and gesturing for the angel to continue. “Have you ever noticed how many of our most memorable moments have been centred around food?”

Crowley opened his mouth to speak, then promptly closed it when he realised he was incapable of anything other than irritating sarcasm that was, most likely, wearing extremely thin. Had been wearing gradually thinner for the past millennia or so, he suspected. Still, patience was a virtue and all that, and Aziraphale could be incredibly virtuous when the situation called for it.

“Think about it,” Aziraphale continued, refusing to be distracted a second time. “There was the time with the McDonald’s, and the rum baba incident in Paris.”

“I still dream about that rum baba.” Crowley closed his eyes, smiling fondly at the memory of his teeth grazing Aziraphale’s fingertip as he fed him on a night that had, admittedly, spiralled just a little out of control, even for them.

“My fingers tasted of rum for _weeks_ after that night.” A pause, as they both disappeared into momentary recollection, before Aziraphale carried on with his run down of their top culinary moments over the millennia. “Sushi, of course. How many nights did we spend falling in love over sushi? Do you remember those coddled eggs we had at the National Gallery cafe that time?”

“ _Really?_ You’re putting coddled eggs among our greatest food-related adventures?”

“What’s wrong with coddled eggs?” Aziraphale wrinkled his brow in confusion that bordered on annoyance.

“Nothing,” Crowley insisted, brandishing both palms in apology. “Nothing’s wrong with coddled eggs. Wow. I never knew you were so passionate about…”

“Coddled eggs are sorely underrated, Crowley.”

“Sure, no, you’re absolutely right, angel. I didn’t mean to…cause any offence?” His voice rose at the end, a question more than anything else.

After a moment, the angel nodded curtly. “None taken. What about those pesto testaroli we used to eat when you had the house in Pompeii, do you remember?”

“How could I forget? You insisted on them _every_ time you visited.”

“Oh, come on now, how could I not? They were perfect. Do you know, I think they might have started my interest in crepes? What else is there? I must be forgetting…”

“What about the time I deep-throated the hot dog?” Crowley added helpfully, remembering the way he had all but unhinged his jaw atop the wall in Manhattan on that fabled summer night in 1969.

“Yes, that was, er, bold foreshadowing.” Aziraphale raised both eyebrows. “I think the fermented shark deserves a special spot at the top of the list. What a meal that was, do you remember?”

“Not the sort of thing you forget, is it, piss shark?” Crowley shook his head, eyes closed as he felt his throat thicken at the memory of the sour gelatinous cube of shark sliding down his gullet.

“Oh, Crowley, how could I miss them off of the list? Oysters! What single food encompasses more of our… Wait, wait a minute.” The angel stopped suddenly, finger quivering as he thrust it accusingly towards Crowley’s face, expression darkening as realisation dawned on him. “Have you _always_ hated oysters?”

Crowley gasped, something he tried to play off as shock that Aziraphale would ever accuse him of such century-spanning deception. Really, though? He was wondering how in the world the angel had cracked his lies after all that time. “No, I…of course I don’t hate oysters. What would ever give you that idea? I mean, I’ve eaten enough of them over the decades, haven’t I? Who would be so stupid as to _pretend_ they like something just to, I don’t know, garner favour with the object of their affection?”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale pursed his lips, considered Crowley’s passionate defence for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “Yes, yes, I suppose you’re right. Nobody would be that foolish, surely. It was just… Anthony _really_ hated them, didn’t he? I thought maybe…never mind.”

“Yes, never mind.” Crowley nodded violently, clinging desperately to any topic that might shift them away from a deep dive into their love story, as told through various oyster dates. “Speaking of the little ones, how do you think they’re getting on in the, er, ole cranial recesses?”

Aziraphale shifted then, drawing his knees up to his chest and folding his arms around the pillow against his thighs. “What are they in there doing, do you suppose? Do you think they’re as angry as we were to be cooped up like that?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re tucked up having a nice little snooze, angel.”

“Ah, of course. Dreaming of…”

“Whatever they like best. Yes, I know.” Crowley laughed, always relishing the opportunity to trot out one of the angel’s favoured lines, tried and tested over the millennia.

“What do you think they’ll do, Crowley? With the rest of their lives, I mean? Once we…fix things.”

“What’s got into you tonight?” Crowley asked, reaching out to rub slow circles around one of the angel’s knees. “First you’re looking all the way back, now you’re looking all the way forward.”

Aziraphale smiled, sliding his hand on top of the demon’s and giving it a little squeeze. “It reminds me of what matters in the present. The past, it’s full of all the sacrifices we made to get to where we are, and the future, that shows us what we’re working towards, what the point of this all is. It’s easier now to see the future as something within reaching distance. When we were still… _knocking around in the ole cranial recesses,_ as you would say, it felt like something so abstract, something that might lay hundreds of years in the future. Everything was so dependent on them holding onto each other and all we could do was watch, gently guide them if they would listen. It was…it was something of a prison, wasn’t it? On that night when Zira walked out of here and I thought we might have been torn apart…”

“Don’t.” Crowley shook his head, smiled despite himself. “We weren’t, and we aren’t. I swear to you, Aziraphale, there is nothing that will ever tear us apart, not any more.”

The angel looked away, eyes focused on the corner of the rug beneath the coffee table, as if he needed to look elsewhere to summon the courage he needed to speak his next words aloud. “Crowley, I wanted to ask. What happened on that night? There was a moment when Zira looked at him and what he saw…I saw it too. It wasn’t you, my love, it wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen in you before.”

There was a shift in the room, the cosy atmosphere of nostalgia and warmth clawed away and replaced with an eerie darkness, a blanket of dread that smothered rather than comforted. Aziraphale found his eyes drawn to the corners of the room, tricked by shadows that seemed to be fleeting things, shapes that skittered away in his periphery. Next to him, Crowley had grown silent and still, save for the pounding rise and fall of his chest as his heart thrummed behind the safe cage of his ribs.

They were on the precipice of something, Aziraphale sensed it, a conversation (or a confession?) that had been left unsaid for so many years, for all of the years they had spent on Earth, perhaps. He opened his mouth to apologise, to pull the words back, to turn the conversation back to happier things, but then Crowley shook his head and looked up at him.

“I told you what happened to me after I fell, didn’t I?” Crowley raised a hand to brush his hair back from his face, fingers shaking. Not just his fingers, Aziraphale noticed, as he reached out to stroke his arm and felt the demon’s skin tremble under his touch. His face was racked with uncertainty, jaw clenched and eyebrows knitting together as he held Aziraphale’s gaze, and then looked away. “I told you about the solitude and the darkness, about the empty hallways and the shadows. Isolation can be as sharp a torture as a knife, if you know how to wield it. Nowhere knows more about isolation than hell. Some days it felt so crowded down there I thought I might drown but that feeling was nothing against those first years, that barren stretch of torturous solitude. I was alone. Truly alone. I didn’t have anybody, angel, not a single soul on my side. My family was gone, my Mother had abandoned me, everybody I thought had ever loved me had left me to fall.”

Crowley stopped then, took a moment to catch his breath, had heard the warning of it hitching in his throat. He didn’t venture back to those days, not often, and on those desperate nights when he had let his mind drag him all the way back to the earliest years in hell, he had only tortured himself with those times, the first times, never what came after.

“It was enough to break some of them, the loneliness. Enough to make them desperate, make them compliant, anything so they wouldn’t have to go back to it. Not me, though. I wanted it to break me, I was ready for it to take whatever part of me was wrong, but they said I wasn’t _ready_ yet, that I needed more time before I could serve hell. And so they sent me back down to that place. Only that time, I wasn’t alone.”

“My love, you don’t have to tell me,” Aziraphale whispered, shifting closer to him. He curled an arm around Crowley’s waist, lost the other in his hair as he pulled him to his chest, felt the demon’s breath shudder against his skin. It was for Crowley’s benefit more than anything else, of course, his insistence that the demon need not continue if it was too much. There was a feeling, though, beneath his need to keep his soulmate safe, that perhaps, for once, the words were best unsaid, perhaps even the knowledge of the depth of hell’s torture would be too much to bear.

“It had been…months, years? I don’t know. Time didn’t seem to hold any meaning down in the pits of hell. They sent me deeper that time, further away from the light, where it wasn’t even dark, it was…it was blank, the way the world might have been before it was ever formed. Empty and silent and unending. All I could do was walk. Footstep after footstep in the hope I would walk all the way to the end, whatever that meant. There was no night, no day, no wind or rain, no stones beneath my feet. I wonder now if perhaps they really had sent me to an unformed world, I don’t know, I’ll never know, and that really is a blessing.

“They wanted me to give up hope, I think. I shouldn’t have kept walking. I should have stopped and given up and folded into myself until I looked as broken as the rest of them. But I couldn’t, I don’t know why, I didn’t want to take another step but I kept walking, one foot in front of the other. I didn’t know, you see, if one more step would take me to a door. Or a ladder. One more step might have been the thing that led me out. There wasn’t a ladder, of course. Hell is not a place that encourages its prisoners to set themselves free.

“I never saw it coming. I never saw it at all. I felt it, though. The way you feel bad news before it arrives, or a thunderstorm in the moments before. It felt like night creeping in, dead trees poisoned by the ground, life burned away to ash. A far off thing, at first, as if it wasn’t even following me, just watching. Biding its time. Waiting for me to slow down. What did I try to do? My stupid, hopeful soul, I tried to outrun it. Left foot, right foot, just keep walking, one more step and then another and another, now two more steps, keep going, you’ll leave it behind. But you can’t, can you? You can’t leave darkness like that behind. I didn’t look back, not once. I didn’t want to see it. If I had, I think it would be all I would ever be able to see, every time I close my eyes, even now. I think it would have consumed me, angel, eternally.

“It followed me in the end, of course. There were no footsteps creeping behind me, just that feeling of a weight tugging at my chest, my shoulders, something thick and heavy pulling me back towards that darkness, pulling me down until I could barely keep my head up, until I could barely remember what I was walking towards, what I was hoping for. It wasn’t fear that it smothered me with as it got closer, it was…nothing, it was emptiness, as if everything that had ever mattered began to fade away. It was the stars that left me first. The first things I ever made, the first things I ever loved. As it got closer it felt like everything else began to fade, like all the colour from my life drained away, red and blue and yellow dripping from my fingers until I became a shadow myself, grey and flat, until I became nobody.

“That’s when it spoke to me. It had to wash _me_ away from myself first, I think, before it could get close enough to whisper. Its words were poison, angel. Every word I’ve used to punish myself for all of those long years after the fall, it would breathe them into me until, in the end, I became what it told me I was. It happens, doesn’t it, if you hear something enough? You begin to believe it and, eventually, you become it. _Broken. Useless. Evil. Guilty._ I don’t know how many years had passed before they decided I was ready, before they knew I had accepted what I was. Saying it wouldn’t have been enough, I had to believe it, I had to _know_ that I was everything it told me I was. That was when they pulled me from the pits, and then it was gone. Physically, at least.

“Demon-eater, I’ve heard them call it, angel-eater too, of course. It doesn’t discriminate; equal opportunity destruction. It has no master, it’s older than us all, something harnessed by Satan to isolate us, to devour hope, to strip away everything that we love, everything that we hold on for. That’s what it is. It’s a shadow on your back, whispering to you in the dark, and I think…I fear that…once it has you, I’m not sure it ever lets you go, not truly. I think perhaps it’s always there in the distance, watching. Maybe it never takes another step towards you, or maybe it visits in the night while you sleep, I don’t know. It’s hell’s greatest weapon. It’s taken more souls than every demon combined ever will. It is despair, hopelessness, defeat. Its message is everything I was sent to Earth to spread. And I would have, I truly believe that. But then I was in the Garden and I saw the trees, the sky was above me again, I felt the sun and the wind, and I began to remember what hope felt like.

“When you brought us here, you gave me a chance to see everything I could have been if I had never fallen, but we haven’t really left, not yet, have we? Even here we’re still…tethered to Earth. To heaven, to hell. On that night when Zira saw that darkness in me, in him, you saw a glimpse of what I would have been if I had truly fallen, if I had become everything hell told me I was, if I had never known hope and love and laughter again. I think you saw what I might have been if we had never met, angel.” Crowley reached out for Aziraphale’s hand, found it at his waist and gripped onto it as tightly as if it was a lifeline. And perhaps, the demon thought with a sad smile, it had been. “I’m sorry, if it scared you to see that in me. I’m not…it’s not what I am. A glimpse of a road not travelled, thankfully.”

“Crowley, I…” Aziraphale fell silent, because what was there to say? There was nothing to take it away, those years of torture Crowley had endured in hell. The only way to play a part in healing that pain was to love him, to make sure he never felt such loneliness again, to fill his life with colour and song and laughter, to do everything in his power to create a world where those words could never touch him again.

The demon shook his head, breathed out the whisper of a laugh. “The only thing I never told you. The final frontier of confession. Gabriel would be so proud.”

Aziraphale smiled, looking down at their clasped hands, the physical manifestation of everything they could be if they worked together. “It’s not going to happen here, Crowley, not like that. No light without darkness, I know, but I won’t let it take this world, it will never spread its poison here.”

Crowley let out a long, low breath as his heart began to calm. It was out there now, the very worst of it, the darkness that had created all the hateful parts of him, and Aziraphale was still there, holding his hand, making sweet promises for the future. “I feel it less here, for what it’s worth. It’s just an echo, the last glint of white before a scar fades away.”

“I should have done this centuries ago,” the angel sighed, head pressed back against the sofa cushions as he closed his eyes in frustration. “I should have brought us here, somewhere safe.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to, not until that moment.” Crowley shook his head, felt a rush of love for the angel by his side, in both name and nature. “I wonder sometimes if everything that ever happens to us has already been written. If all of _us_ are just part of some Great Plan we can’t possibly understand.”

“The Ineffable Plan.” Aziraphale laughed, remembering that day when those words had saved the entire world. “Perhaps God does, indeed, play dice with the universe.”

A smile and then a kiss, the full stop at the end of a story the demon would never tell again. “What happened to _best not to speculate_?”

“Times change, my love, thank God.”

_Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt._

“What do they want?” Crowley wondered aloud, voice laced with affection as he retrieved his phone from the coffee table and spotted the name on the screen: _Lucifer and the Guys._

 **Dan** : _Final call for rehearsal. Two weeks, are we all in? Sammy’s turn to buy pizza. Don’t even think about ‘forgetting your debit card’_

 **Lily** : _I’m in, and make mine an extra large, thanks, Sam. Little Brother, don’t you dare try to change the setlist, I don’t care how many saccharine serenades you want to dedicate to your hubby_

Crowley smiled down at the screen, felt fondness surge in his chest, and then sent back a middle finger emoji for good measure. It was the little things, in the end, that helped him see the bigger picture.

“It’s not just this we’re fighting for, angel.” Crowley brought a hand up to cup the angel’s face, thumb stroking a gentle path down the length of his jaw. He leaned across, pressed a sweet, lingering kiss against his lips. When they broke apart he unlocked his phone and held it between them, the two of them looking down at the background wallpaper of Anthony and Zira, heads together, beaming at the camera as the sun set behind them.

They had spent near enough eternity fighting for each other, fighting for their love, for freedom, but they had won that battle. It was time for a new war. They were fighting for Anthony and Zira, the human counterparts they had grown to love so fiercely, they were fighting for family, for Raphael and Luci, for Lily and Sammy and Dan, for sweet, paternal Mick, for Barnaby, for every soul they had come to love in that world.

He thought back to that strange flickering tremor they felt in the bookshop, something that was sent to cast fear into their hearts and, yes, it had worked. But it had cast something else at the same time as that initial fear: determination, indignation, hope. “You said he was trying to drive us out, didn’t you? The tremor, the darkness. It was Gabriel, wasn’t it? Has heaven finally found us?”

Aziraphale shook his head, hoping that his words were true, that he wasn’t over-confident or, even worse, complacent. Had enough time passed that he might begin to underestimate heaven’s power? “No. No, my love, I don’t think he’s found us, not yet, or I don’t believe we’d be sitting here right now. But he’s close. I would wager a hundred worlds around us felt those same tremors. He’s hoping we’ll panic, that we’ll do something rash to give ourselves away.”

Crowley fell quiet for a moment, shaking his head in disbelief as if he’d just understood the punchline of a joke that had been told many centuries earlier. _Pest. Broken. Vermin. Wrong. Exiled. Hopeless. No. No, not any more._ He sat up, fists balled in his lap, and when he spoke his voice was strong, rising in volume until his words were all but a call to arms.

“Oh, we’re not going to give ourselves away, angel, and he’s not going to drive us out. We’ve spent too long running. Not any more. We did the impossible. We got out, we made it to a better world. Now we call the shots. We decide when it’s time. And when it is, we’re going to beat him.”

It was in Crowley’s nature for a feeling to strike and for him to run with it, wherever it would lead. As his posture changed, assertive and ready to fight, Aziraphale raised his hands and affected a warning voice in a bid to calm him down before he could get too fired up. “No, no, I think we should stick to the plan. We stay hidden and let heaven and hell take care of each other; we can win by staying quiet. A passive victory is still a victory.”

Crowley glanced back at the painting hanging behind them. “I am not leaving them in that world. They should be here with us. We can’t look after this place alone for eternity. We can’t do everything on our own, Aziraphale.”

 _Please, my love, stay here with me where we’re safe. We have each other, finally, we can’t risk it._ The thought died in Aziraphale’s mind before he could truly commit to it but the imprint of it rang true, that fear of going back only to be caught in a trap, of gambling their future away on a bet they could never win. “We’ve survived as a _we_ for six thousand years, Crowley, despite the risks, _because_ we did everything on our own.”

“We deserve to do more than just survive, angel. I want us to live, to be happy, I don’t want us to exist in the shadows any more.” Crowley dropped his voice, taking Aziraphale’s face in his hands, just as he had that day in the park when everything should have ended. “Listen to me, I know hell, I know their weapons, I know all of their terrible secrets. I know every trick they have laying in wait. And you, you know heaven. You know everything they’re capable of, you know the lengths Gabriel will go to, you know the devotion of his army. We know what they don’t. We can defeat them, angel, together. But we can’t do it alone.”

Crowley was right. They couldn’t leave sweet Raphael to die in a war they would never fight in, they couldn’t give up without searching for Lucifer, without hoping they might have somehow hidden away for those long millennia, that there was still a chance. They couldn’t turn their back on the world they had loved for so long. That was why he had made the new world, wasn’t it, to preserve as much of the Earth as he could? He knew then that he would never rescind on the promise he had made Crowley on that night the world had failed to end: that he would follow him anywhere.

“Together?” Crowley asked, extending a hand, offering a pledge to see their dream through to the end, whatever the cost.

After a breath, Aziraphale took it, linking their fingers together as he nodded, determined. There was no _how_ or _when_ , the time would come for that, all that mattered was _why_. For family, for love, for the world.

“Together. To the end of everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good afternoon dears (or good morning/goodnight, depending on your timezone!), how are you all doing? I'm coffee-d up to the eyeballs and very happy to publish this girthy chapter (😂). I've been waiting to introduce our new character for a very, very, very long time (although they were nameless until a couple weeks ago but now I get to replace all of the tags in my notes 😂) so I really hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> The next chapter is coming onWednesday March 4th and if you'll indulge giving you a sneak peek in emoji form: 🚗🤬🌿😩🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🥰☕🍰
> 
> For anyone who fancies listening to the playlist who doesn't have the link, you can find it here and I add new songs with each chapter: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cg2M5HKvnoTPYStsMT0c6
> 
> <3


	11. Build Me Up Buttercup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Free range plants more your thing? So they can go for a little stroll on their little green toes?”

**April. Anthony’s Car, London.**

An angel and a demon had spent the previous night brainstorming possible ways to meet the forces of heaven and hell in battle and, if they were extraordinarily lucky, live to tell the tale. But before they faced off against divinity and evil, there were more important things on the agenda, and those things were green, leafy, and one particular demon’s favourite thing of all.

“I really could have done with an extra hour in bed,” Aziraphale mumbled glumly, chin pressed moodily to his knuckles as he gazed out of the window of the stationary car.

“Need to beat the crowds,” Crowley explained through a yawn, stabbing the key in the vague vicinity of the ignition until he finally struck gold. “It’s what humans do at the weekend, go to a garden centre, isn’t it? Lovely. Relaxing.”

“We could have just gone for brunch if we wanted to do what humans do at the weekend. Bountiful brunch, copious amounts of food, excellent conversation, a _lay in_. That’s what weekends are all about, Crowley.”

“Well, _this_ weekend is about plants, angel. We’re sprucing up that barren wasteland Anthony calls a home.” Crowley turned the key, wincing as the car lurched forward, stopping an inch away from the concrete wall in front of them. He let out a nervous laugh, glancing across at Aziraphale. “Think he left it in gear.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow, huffing out an impatient little sigh and then turning away to glance at their surroundings with adequate levels of angelic disdain.

The underground car park was a place that could only be described as _dank_ , with an acrid tang in the air that was suspiciously urinary. White lines that marked out the bay reserved for each of the flats were faded and cracked, leaving the residents relying on memory to park within their allotted space. Still, one unsavoury car park could be no match for a demon who had been behind the wheel for near enough a century, surely?

***

“Crowley, for _heaven’s_ sake, you can’t go through a red light!” Aziraphale wailed, pointing vainly at the scarlet light they juddered past as Crowley kangaroo-ed his way from second gear up to third.

“Sorry!” the demon called, rushing to wind down the window and hurl apologies at the pedestrians who had jumped back onto the pavement in the nick of time, tutting as they watched a well-loved black Ford Fiesta crawl shakily past the traffic lights, as the angel and demon inside did what they did best: bickered. “Will you shut up about my driving? It doesn’t help, you criticising every single thing I do. This is a lot harder than it looks, angel. It has _three_ pedals. I don’t have three feet, do I, Aziraphale? Do I have three feet? Do I?”

Pursing his lips, Aziraphale resumed glancing idly out of the window, unable to repress letting one last comment out into the ether. “Not so smug now you don’t have a spiritual connection to your vehicle, are you?”

Crowley rolled his eyes, clutching the steering wheel as if both of their lives depended on his absolute concentration. “Just call it a car, angel, for Somebody’s sake.”

“So when does this little outing become relaxing?” the angel asked a moment later, as they narrowly avoided clipping the wing mirror of a parked car.

“Any minute,” Crowley promised, crunching through the gears as they sped north. It had been entirely redundant to take the car out with them that morning, given the garden centre’s direct proximity to the nearest tube station but Crowley had insisted he would not be restricted to _only the plants we can carry on public transport_. And thus, Anthony’s car was dubiously enjoying its first outing since it had come into the possession of a demon who didn’t have quite the natural proclivity for driving that he had previously thought. “Just wait until we get there. Relaxation city, I promise.”

***

“Call me an old silly but this doesn’t _feel_ very relaxing,” Aziraphale murmured, casting a glance in Crowley’s direction as the demon scowled at a fellow shopper who put a little fern back on the shelf because it looked _unloved_.

“Of course it looks unloved,” the demon hissed, snatching up its pot and placing it gently in their own trolley, which was gradually becoming a safe haven for each and every plant in the shop that just needed a little TLC to get back on its feet. Well, not its feet. Plants didn’t have legs, of course. “Stuck here in a place like this, it’s barbaric, it’s like a prison. They shouldn’t be…cooped up like this.”

“Cooped up?” Aziraphale looked at him in amusement. “Free range plants more your thing? So they can go for a little stroll on their little green toes?”

“You know what I mean.” Crowley glowered back in the angel’s direction, rootling through the barrel cacti on offer, in search of the one that looked most like it needed rescuing. Momentarily happy with his selection, his frown was quickly reinstated as he morosely pushed the trolley towards the selection of palms. “This is ridiculous.”

“Don’t start with that, dear, you love shopping. You’ll shop for anything, you’re having a great time. Lord knows I spent enough time back there waiting for you to choose between two spider plants that looked absolutely identical.”

“First of all, Aziraphale.” Crowley paused, holding up a finger. “No two spider plants are identical, that’s offensive. Second, shopping is the same as showering, I like it when it’s a novelty, not a necessity. I’m the _creator_ of…” He lowered his voice as a woman stopped behind them, pretending not to eavesdrop. “I’m the creator of the verdant bounty you see before you.”

“Well, technically _I_ am.” Aziraphale gave a cheery little smile to reinforce his correction.

Crowley rolled his eyes, letting out a growl of aggravation. “I’m just saying, it’s insulting, the creator of the first forests having to shop for succulents with the masses.”

***

“What about this one?” Aziraphale asked, racing towards a bushy little plant with velvety silver white leaves that was aptly named _Angel Wings_.

“No, angel.” Crowley closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “That’s an outdoor plant. You see that big sign above us that says _Outdoor_ _Plants_? That should be your first clue.”

Aziraphale nodded absent-mindedly, recalling the last time he had stood in that same garden centre in the old world and heard near identical words spoken with near identical levels of impatience. He pondered, happily, the breakneck speed with which his life had changed since that day when he had bought his very first plant in a bid to feel closer to Crowley during that torturous year they had spent apart. On that day he would never have fathomed that the next time he visited would be with Crowley in tow, loudly calling for him to pick up that fittonia that looked a little droopy.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said gently, as the demon pushed the heaving trolley towards the cash register. “Do you think perhaps you’ve gone a little over the top? He’s going to notice if he wakes up one morning and his flat has been transformed into an indoor forest.”

“And then he’ll remember that relaxing, pleasant morning he and Zira spent picking out plants to make things a little more homey, won’t he?” Crowley turned to give the angel a triumphant little smile.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to remind Crowley that they were supposed to leave their own interests at the door and leave Anthony and Zira’s lives and, by extension, their living spaces, untouched, lest they arouse suspicion. A small sound came out, transforming into a strangled bleat as he looked up to find himself in the direct eye line of the girl behind the cash desk, who gave him a curious look as if she recognised him from somewhere.

“Crowley, I’ll meet you outside.” He grabbed for the demon’s forearm, tugging him back until he came to a stop. “Shall I, er, go and unlock the car? Clear off the back seats for all these new acquisitions?”

“No, it’s fine.” Crowley wrinkled his nose, glancing across to the cash desk and wondering why exactly the perfectly friendly-looking girl behind it had rendered Aziraphale so uneasy. “What’s wrong with you? Jilted ex-lover, is it?”

“ _Stop that_ ,” Aziraphale hissed, lightly thwacking the demon’s ribs with the back of one hand. Eventually he dropped his voice, leaning in close as he shifted from foot to foot, eyeing the exit as if it was a lifeline. “No, I’ve…I’ve been here before.”

“What? You’ve been to a garden centre? You don’t know anything about plants. Oh, I know, you just came for the cafe, didn’t you?”

“Excuse me, I came here to make a purchase, thank you very much. But, er, things got a little heated.”

“Heated?” Crowley parroted the word, a smile lifting the corners of his lips, the treacherous sort of smile that tended to spell bad news for Aziraphale. He looked at the angel standing before him, hands fidgeting nervously in front of his stomach, toes pointed firmly towards the exit of the shop, as if his feet were itching to carry him away from any potentially awkward scenarios; he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a soul who looked as if he got heated on a regular basis, particularly not in a garden centre in Hampstead.

“I got carried away.” Aziraphale sighed, stealing a glance at the cash desk. “I might have…raised my voice.”

Crowley draped his arms over the edge of the trolley, beaming up at Aziraphale as if he couldn’t have possibly been happier in that moment. “ _You_? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you raise your voice to anybody. Except me. Bad day, was it?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Bad century, if we’re going to get into it. Anyway, let’s get this over with, shall we?”

Crowley had assumed that Aziraphale, who shied away from confrontation at all cost, would do nothing more than stand quietly by his side while he paid for Anthony’s plants. Crowley, however, had assumed wrong.

The first time Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak, the demon laid a hand on his arm and shook his head, dropping his voice to a whisper while the girl turned her back to retrieve a box for the plants. “Don’t do it, angel. It was a different world, she’s not going to remember you. It’s not even her, is it, it’s just a…copy? I don’t know. How _did_ you populate this place anyway?”

“Couldn’t tell you.” Aziraphale shrugged, as if the idea of pondering how he had created a thriving population out of nothing had slipped his mind. Then, the girl returned with the box and Aziraphale jumped in before Crowley could stop him. “My dear girl, I’m so sorry. I was beastly to you the last time I was here.”

She looked at him, brown eyes narrowed as she lost herself to a recollection, and then she nodded slowly, laughing. “Don’t worry, sir. We all have bad days or, er, bad centuries, wasn’t it?”

Aziraphale smiled warmly, taking the box from her with an appreciative nod of the head. “Still, things can only get better, can’t they?”

He shot a satisfied smile at Crowley, then strode past him towards the pretty cafe that lay outside, overlooking the sunny gardens. Crowley watched Aziraphale leave, dumbfounded for a moment as the weight of what he had just witnessed dawned on him. She had recognised Aziraphale. She _knew_ he’d visited in the old world, she remembered meeting him. That wasn’t a memory implanted at the moment Aziraphale had created a new world, and that wasn’t a new shop assistant…she _was_ the shop assistant Aziraphale had met two years previously. Had he done so much more than simply create a new population, had he really _taken_ people from the old world, saved them from the rapture and everything that would come after it? His thoughts turned to Mick, the only human he had ever really known in the old world. Was it possible, he wondered, that the man he had met at their party, the man he was going to help at the allotment the next week, was the _same_ man he had spent two decades nodding at from across the room in the Devil’s Den?

The demon let out a low whistle, wondering if, perhaps, Aziraphale was more powerful than even he had realised, if he held powers of creation inside the likes of which the archangels couldn’t even fathom. Was it the first time, he thought desperately, that an angel had ever wielded power of that depth? That wasn’t an angel’s power, Crowley knew, that was the Almighty’s gift. What did it mean? What had happened to Aziraphale that day in the park, had he become something else in that moment? Had his absolute determination to save not only themselves but the entirety of humanity transformed him into something beyond divine? His mind raced with the magnitude of it, what it might mean for them, what it might mean for the future of that world…And then he spotted Aziraphale through the glass of the cafe window, bending low to observe the cakes behind the counter, and he felt a rush of love that transcended everything else, even divinity.

***

“Busy life, being human,” Crowley mused, enjoying the rare treat of one scone or two being the most complex decision he needed to make that day. “No rest for the wicked.”

“No rest indeed. Even our reticent bookseller has a heaving social calendar these days.” Heaving might have been an overstatement, Aziraphale realised a moment after he spoke, but even so, Zira’s diary of upcoming social engagements had soared from zero to one, thanks to the angel’s drunken promise to meet with Clara and Bella for brunch the next weekend.

“Think we got a bit complacent in the old world, too much autonomous working.” The demon sighed, pushing the menu back across the table as he made up his mind. Two scones. Why not, eh? “Hard to adjust to the old nine to five, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale nodded, stifling a yawn. “I’m so tired, Crowley, all the time. We have so much laundry to do. I just don’t have the energy for it. I never miss miracles more than when there’s laundry to fold. Why is everything about the human existence so…labour intensive?”

“Have a word with upstairs if you like but I'm sure it comes back to some sort of divine belief in suffering to earn a ticket to paradise. In fact, have a word with yourself, you created this place, couldn’t you at least have given them clothes that don’t crease?”

“I’ll bear that in mind for next time.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes, then nodded down at the menu. “It must be your turn to go and order.”

“Afraid not, it’s definitely your turn. Cream tea, please. Two scones.” Crowley shook his head, chin resting lightly against the palm of his hand as he leaned against the table.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it and accepted his fate, hauling himself wearily out of his chair and trudging over to the counter to order their food. As he left, Crowley watched him go with a smile on his face, content in the knowledge that there was nothing he’d rather do on a springtime Saturday that sit surrounded by plants, watching his angel walk away from him, knowing he would return not a moment later. There was somewhat of a queue, given that half of London seemed to have been drawn to perusing plants in the pretty April sunshine, so Crowley decided to pass the time by pulling out a pristine copy of _Web Design for Dummies_ and diving in, filled with heady optimism that it would surely transform him into a website wizard before the weekend was out.

***

“He’ll be fine with the spider plant. Everybody’s fine with spider plants. You just have to look at them and a new shoot appears.” Crowley leaned over, running a finger along the underside of a curving green leaf belonging to one of the new plants Anthony would be tasked with caring for, soon enough.

“ _You_ just have to look at them, maybe.” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow, pausing to take a bite out of a warm, fluffy scone, cream and jam piled high enough that a streak of pink was left on his top lip. “Not everybody has your way with plants, my dear.”

The demon conceded with a nod, then dissolved into one-sided discussion about each of the plants he had rescued from the garden centre, where they might be happiest in the flat, who their horticultural neighbour might be. And then, as conversations between creators are wont to do, Crowley’s stream of chatter turned to his own experiences at bringing the species into being, what his inspiration had been, how he had dreamed they might grow and evolve and bloom throughout the world. Some of them, he revealed, voice gathering the momentum of excitement, he hadn’t even created at all, some of them had taken it upon themselves to mutate, to become something new all together.

As he spoke, lost in his daydream of eons gone by, retreating back to that happy time when he had travelled the world by Raphael’s side and left forests and plants and flowers blooming in his wake, Aziraphale watched him with a soft smile on his face. _There is nothing I love more,_ the angel thought, _than watching you talk about something you love. You light up, you know. It makes you shine, passion, and nothing makes me prouder than you wanting to share it with me._

“…Pedantic buggers, though, so they’ll need a spot right on the windowsill so- What?” Crowley stopped suddenly, noticing the way Aziraphale’s eyes were trained on his face. He ran a finger across his lip in case of stray crumbs. “What? Why are you looking at me like that? What have I-”

“I love you.” The angel smiled as he reached for his hand, wondered idly if it could ever be possible to lose that thrill of being able to touch him in public, of being able to love him just the way he had always dreamed. “I just love you, that’s all. I forget, sometimes, that I can say it whenever I want, whenever I think it. I got so used to locking it away, of telling you I loved you in every possible way except speaking it aloud.”

Crowley nodded, letting out a little laugh of remembrance. “All those years, angel. Those three words were everything we never said. So much time finding other ways to love each other. Drawn out dinners, secret presents that would be meaningless to any other soul, a glass of wine by the fire…”

“…Speaking somebody else’s words, pretending that all we wanted was to share a poem we'd stumbled across, as if the words we chose to read to each other were ever an accident. We had to find a hundred other ways to show it, didn’t we? It’s all you can when leaving the words unsaid is the only way to survive. I’d told you I loved you a thousand times before I ever said the words.”

Crowley smiled, letting himself drift into the memory of sitting beneath the trees in a forest he had just created, listening to the greatest teacher he had ever known. It was as if the archangel had known, even then, that their words were what would shepherd him home, however winding the path to get there might be. “It’s just like Raphael told me, love is the quietest rebellion.”

There was no champagne on their table that day, no grand fluted glass with which to toast. Still, Aziraphale had learned to improvise over the years, and when he raised his cup of tea to clink gently against Crowley’s, there had never been a sweeter sound. “And here we are, quietly rebelling, after all this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! How are you? I hope you're having a very cheery Wednesday and (if you're in the UK) this NON-STOP, INCESSANT, UNENDING rain isn't getting to you. As you can tell, I'm weathering the ETERNAL STORM very well 😂.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed today's little trip to the garden centre with obligatory cream tea afterwards, as is customary. The next chapter is coming next Wednesday March 11th and sees the boys return to the world of work. Did Crowley's Web Design for Dummies teach him anything at all? Stay tuned. Edge of your seat stuff, isn't it? 😂.
> 
> On the horizon we have Aziraphale's brunch date with Clara and Bella, as well as Crowley's 'research' into how they might go about saving the world, and Crowley's trip to the allotment with Mick.
> 
> OH! Also, you might have noticed I have a shiny new (well, my only) AO3 display picture! Huge thanks to lovely AmbassadorInara for making it for me, I love it so much 😭. I exist! I'm officially no longer default.
> 
> *And another thing!* We've published up to chapter 19 of the Ineffably Yours (Part I) podfic, which you can listen to here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22483684/chapters/53724280. I cannot overstate how absolutely incredible this is, I really hope you've been enjoying it! Our next instalment includes the first chapter I've read sooo yes, would fully be lying if I said I wasn't nervous for you to hear it. Shoutout to the duo of dreams ShinyMathom and CelestialBiscuitClub_Becky for handling all the behind the scenes bits and bobs to get the uploads published 😘.
> 
> <3


	12. Bermondsey Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brunch, Aziraphale reasoned, might just become his new favourite way to wile away a Saturday morning.

**April. Tanner & Co., Bermondsey.** ****

“Oh, I don’t know about all that.” Aziraphale smiled, looking away shyly as he cut into the poached egg on his plate to send a river of golden yellow yolk gushing over the buttery toast that lay beneath it. He took a bite, closing his eyes and nodding slowly, savouring the taste. “Delicious.”

He had almost cancelled his brunch date with Clara and Bella, had stood at the foot of the bed that morning lamenting how in the world he could possibly pass for Zira, when Crowley had snorted out a laugh as he watched the angel begin pacing back and forth, fretting under his breath as a stampede of worst case scenarios ran through his mind.

“I don’t know, angel, how will you _ever_ pass for an anxious, twitchy bookseller from Soho?”

Aziraphale had stopped pacing then, one hand steepled against his hip as he turned to glare in Crowley’s direction, his expression one of absolute disdain for the demon who was sprawled across the bed, with Barnaby sprawled identically beside him. “Are you going to help or are you going to just drape yourself across various pieces of furniture until I leave?”

“I can’t help it. I’m raffish. Impossible not to drape.” Crowley grinned, swinging his legs off of the bed and taking Aziraphale’s hand, tugging him out into the living room. “Jacket. Phone. Wallet. Now go, eat all the smashed avocado on toast you possibly can and don’t forget to dish the dirt. It’s bottomless brunch, not a funeral.”

“I’m really not sure about this.” Aziraphale sighed, pressed his lips to the demon’s and then he was gone, lips pursed primly as he made his way to the tube station that would spit him back out in Bermondsey, where lunch, and his human counterpart’s boyfriend’s band’s non-groupies would be waiting. Or perhaps, he mused, it would just be easier to call them Clara and Bella.

They had met without incident, Aziraphale noticing a flash of shock register on the girls’ faces when they spotted him, as if they had only half-thought he would show up. Aziraphale took his seat on the soft leather bench, while the two girls sat opposite him, leaning in as one before he’d even had a chance to decide whether he wanted a Bloody Mary or Prosecco to accompany the aforementioned avocado on toast.

“That was quite a story you told at the party, Zira.” Clara had spoken first, razor sharp eyebrow quirking up as she reached the last word.

Silence then, save for the little splutters that Aziraphale had let out, mind racing as he looked from Clara to Bella (or was it from Bella to Clara?) to search for any hint of suspicion in their expressions. _Do they know? Did they believe me? Oh, heavens, in what universe did I think it would be a good idea to…_

Then Bella clapped her hands against the table and any imagined tension dissipated as quickly as Aziraphale imagined it. She leaned closer, words spilling out as she picked up tangent after tangent. “Oh my god, it was so funny, wasn’t it, Clara? We said you should write a book. We’d buy it. We’d be first in line for you to sign it. I could take your author photo. I wouldn’t even charge you.”

“You’re a photographer?” Aziraphale asked quickly, anything to move the focus away from his drunken confession. It was all they had needed, a little thread of interest, and the girls had spent the next hour weaving the angel a vibrant tapestry of their lives.

As the drinks had arrived, replaced twenty minutes later with a fresh round, and another round every twenty minutes after that, they had chatted and laughed and eaten their way through plate after plate, until even Aziraphale had to admit he was growing full. Still, one more poached egg on toast for the road, eh?

And that was how Aziraphale had found himself looking away from the girls to focus on the food in front of him, after they had asked if it had really been love at first sight when he and Anthony met all those months ago.

His first instinct, of course, had been to dissolve into a doe-eyed version of himself and softly declare that yes, it had always been love, right from the very beginning, even if it had taken him an eternity to realise. That was the Bloody Marys doing the thinking for him, he thought to himself with a little shake of the head. No, that was _his_ story, not Zira’s. He had witnessed it, naturally, the first moment Zira had laid eyes on Anthony in the bar, how he had felt the rising hope of something he couldn’t place, a yearning to move closer to him, to talk with him, to sit by his side and watch the way his lips moved as he spoke.

He had looked so lonely that day. There had been something sad in his posture, the way he sat hunched over, fingers tapping absent-mindedly against the rim of his glass as if he was somewhere else entirely. It had reminded Aziraphale of the first time he had ever seen Crowley, as the two of them had stood atop Eden’s gate, a distant look in the demon’s eyes as he glanced down at the garden, up at the endless arc of sky and then, finally, at Aziraphale’s face. A moment, as short as a breath, when their eyes had met and then they had both looked away, reminded of who they were, what they had been sent there to do.

He had seen two rings of fire in his mind long after he and Crowley had parted ways for the first time, those eyes of burning ember accompanying him as he went about his work. They would skirt away to his periphery, yes, on occasion, but they had been there in his mind, always, since the first moment he had looked upon them.

It hadn’t been so different for Zira, not really. The same confusion as to _why_ that stranger had pulled his focus so completely since the day the world had shifted and _something_ (fate? Coincidence? Ineffability? Inevitability, come to that?) had led them to each other. The same resolute determination to bury those feelings, to shy away from the intensity of it all. The same flash of something that might have been anger at himself for being so foolish, for being drawn into a hopeless dream.

Love at first sight? Perhaps not. But something, at least. Something that felt like a beginning, like the first page of a story that would build and build…but to what end? What _would_ Anthony and Zira’s final page be, the angel wondered? One last farewell, decades from that day, side by side until the end? Would one leave the other, alone again with nothing but memories? Would they part ways after enough years, their love story burning itself out and leaving only quiet nostalgia in its wake? _No, I don’t know what lays in their future, if I’m honest, but it’s not that._ Aziraphale smiled to himself, took another bite of his food to buy himself another moment with his thoughts.

“What do you think, Zira?” Clara asked, excitement bubbling in her voice as she flicked a black lacquered fingernail against her empty glass. “One more?”

“Go on then.” Aziraphale nodded, glancing down at his watch to find the numbers dancing to and fro, as if it was too glorious a day for them to have any intention of staying still. _Maybe I’d better not… No, no, one more won’t hurt. Besides, this is fun. Brunch. Brunching with the girls. Oh, good lord, no, let’s purge that utterance from memory, shall we?_

***

“Oh, oh, I am _not_ joking, ladies.” Aziraphale paused to let out a hoot of laughter as Clara and Bella stared at him open-mouthed, glasses cradled lazily in their hands. “I promise…promise you. Right there against the wall in the back room, not a moment to waste. Almost brought the entire bookshop down around us. I think I could have woken the dead. Maybe I did. Perhaps a few headstones came loose all the way up in Highgate. And do you know something? We didn’t even realise we weren’t alone until we heard a little cough from the shop floor. A gentleman wanting to buy an A.A. Milne! Can you believe it?”

“We _knew_ it,” Bella screeched, descending into giggles as she elbowed Clara. “Didn’t we always say? We said Anthony would be a demon behind closed doors. It’s the hips, isn’t it? You can just tell. And the hair.”

“Yes, the hair.” Aziraphale nodded thoughtfully, lost momentarily to a rather glorious whistle stop tour of all the times he had looked down to find himself clutching a fistful of Crowley’s hair in one hand. “It is rather good, isn’t it? Now, what do you think, just one more little drink before we call it a day?”

Brunch, Aziraphale reasoned, might become his new favourite way to wile away a Saturday morning. And, if said brunch was bottomless, which he decided all brunches henceforth should be, Saturday afternoon as well.

***

“Let’s not take so long to arrange something next time.” Aziraphale smiled, resting a gentle hand on Clara’s shoulder, and then Bella’s a moment later. He pulled back after a moment, not trusting himself to linger any longer, lest he fall into the century-long routine of performing a frivolous miracle to bestow peace on any human acquaintance whose company he had enjoyed.

They were sweet girls, fun to be around and kind too, listening to him with undivided interest when he spoke. Their eyes hadn’t wandered down to their phones, or to nearby tables where more interesting conversations might take place. No, they engaged with him, smiled when he told jokes, leaned forward when his recollections reached their crux. It was as if, he realised, they considered him a friend. Perhaps that’s what they had become that day, over eggs and Bloody Marys and pancakes. Friends. Yes. The word felt right in his mind. It was time, Aziraphale decided, to stop running from the familiarity. Maybe Crowley was right, maybe there wasn’t danger in opening themselves up to the idea of friendship, of something outside just the two of them.

“Bye, Zira. This was fun.” Bella’s voice was tinged with shyness as she looked down at her heavy black boots. “Say hi to Crowley from us. We’ll see you at the gig, won’t we?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll be there.” Aziraphale nodded, swaying a pace to the left as he squinted up at the sky. Why was it so bright? Had it been that bright when he’d entered the restaurant? He felt a little unsteady on his feet, realised too late he might have had one drink too many. Still, what were Saturdays for if not drinking one too many cocktails with new friends? “I wouldn’t miss it. Watching my…man on stage. Performing. Live. In front of an audience. Playing the guitar, like somebody who…knows how.”

A nervous laugh then, as the reality of the situation dawned on him. It was only a few short weeks until Crowley, _his_ Crowley, would be taking to the stage in the Devil’s Den as part of Lucifer and the Guys. It would be, the angel realised, the biggest test of laying low that the two of them would face. How to explain that Anthony had suddenly lost his ability to play even the most simple of melodies? In fact, it wasn’t even the melody that worried Aziraphale, it was the basic principle of rhythm that eluded Crowley. Aziraphale had, after all, heard him play the harmonica. It was enthusiastic. It was unforgettable. But it wasn’t pretty.

***

Aziraphale reached out to unlock the door to the flat, pausing with his hand an inch from the doorknob when he heard a crash ricochet out from inside.

“Crowley?” he called frantically, voice panicked as he fumbled with the key, banging on the door with his other hand as every disaster scenario he had pushed to the back of his mind came roaring to the forefront. Had Gabriel found them? Was that the moment everything would change, again? Would he open the door to find Crowley scared or hurt or, worst of all, gone without a trace?

Hands shaking as he twisted the key in the lock, Aziraphale had already compiled a shortlist of the five most bloodthirsty ways he would wreak revenge on the entirety of heaven if they had so much as ruffled a single red hair on Crowley’s head when-

**_You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!_ **

Aziraphale stood in the doorway, chest heaving with effort as he fought to catch his breath, tears leaving his vision swimming as he found Crowley on the sofa, hunched over the coffee table as he scribbled down notes on a pad. On the television screen in front of him, two men were staring despondently at a van that had, without question, had more than just its doors blown off.

“Are you all right?” Crowley asked, giving the angel a quick once over, taking in the beads of sweat on his brow, the prickle of red across his upper chest. He tapped a button on the remote control and the television fell silent. Glancing down at the notepad on the coffee table, he casually laid his arm across it to obscure his notes from view. _Almost_ casually, at least. “You look a bit…damp. Have you been fretting about something again?”

Aziraphale sighed, unflexing his fists and shakes his hands out in front of him, as if he couldn’t quite fathom the rage that had momentarily settled over him when he thought something might have happened to Crowley. It was wholly unangelic, he presumed, to silently vow to send the archangel Gabriel screaming down to hell if he dared try to come between them. As it turned out, Crowley was fine, and thus, Gabriel had bought himself a stay of execution. “I thought something had happened to you. There was a kerfuffle, I heard…never mind. What is all this?”

“Ah!” Crowley lit up, eyebrows raising as he broke into a grin. “Remember my idea to sneak into heaven, tuck Raphael under one arm and sneak back out, no harm, no foul?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, swaying ever so slightly on the spot. It might have been out of weariness. It might have been because of the drinks with brunch. It was a mystery as deep as the meaning of life.

“Slight hiccup in that I haven’t quite figured out how we’re going to bump off that purple-eyed wanker but I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

Aziraphale thrust out a hand to steady himself, felt it slip down the smooth surface of the wall in front of him. “Crowley, we’re not…we’re not _tucking Raphael under one arm,_ we’ve been through this.”

After a moment of patient silence, in which he disregarded every word the angel had said, Crowley continued, enthusiasm unabated. “You told me I needed to come up with a solid plan before you were willing to even discuss it. A little harsh, in my opinion, but still, I’m not one to argue. Anyway, I thought I’d do some research. Firm up the plan a bit, you know? Look, I made notes!”

The demon beamed up at Aziraphale, proudly brandishing the notebook in his direction. Aziraphale squinted at the book, taking it in one hand as he sank down next to Crowley on the sofa. There were pages of notes under subheadings: Reservoir Dogs, Heat, Ocean’s Eleven, and, inexplicably, Chicken Run. Underneath the most recent subheading (The Italian Job), Crowley had written _Specialists: getaway driver? Tech genius?_

It must have been a particularly important note, Aziraphale noticed, as he’d circled it three times in red pen. The angel blinked down at the page, then looked up at Crowley, who smiled dazzlingly back at him. When the demon spoke, his voice was a happy little singsong. “So…what do you think?”

Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how in the world they could ever possibly hope to pull off the sort of plan that involved a getaway driver when they could barely get through a single working week without sighing wearily at ten minute intervals. “My dear, _please…_ ”

Mouth set in a thin line, Crowley snatched back his notepad and flicked to the most recent page. He laid it across his knees and picked up the remote control, giving Aziraphale a pointed glare. “You were the one who said we needed to think of a plan. At least I’m _trying_ to save the world. What, if I may be so bold, have you been doing other than going for brunch and not selling books?”

Aziraphale sighed, again, partly because Crowley was right but mostly because a yawn had threatened to make an appearance and he’d had the foresight to disguise as a sigh at the last moment. He patted Crowley on the thigh, leaning across to catch the side of his mouth in a kiss, smiling as he felt the demon soften. “We will save the world, my love, I just need a little nap first. It’s these Bloody Marys, Crowley, they’re lethal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves! I hope you’re all having a lovely week and the skies are much brighter for you than they have been here. Saying that, I shouldn’t complain as today we actually had some sunshine AND I spotted the sweetest, chonkiest little bee on some flowers in the garden - is it too early to start getting excited about spring?
> 
> I hope you enjoyed today’s chapter! The next update is coming next Wednesday the 18th, so stay tuned if you ever wanted to learn a little bit more about sweet old Mick, as it’s time to head down to the allotment!
> 
> The next Ineffably Yours podfic update is coming to you this Friday (13th) and it includes the first chapter that I’ve recorded (chapter 21!) so I really hope you all enjoy it, I’d love to hear what you think when you have a chance to listen :D.
> 
> Speak soon, pals, I hope you’re all well <3


	13. Cycles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Morning, poppet. This isn’t usually your scene, wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

**April. Mick’s Allotment, Crystal Palace**

It was a misty morning in London when Crowley arrived at the allotment, half an hour ahead of schedule. He hadn’t planned to be early, never planned to be anything other than right on time, which usually translated into being demonically late. He would be late for doomsday, Aziraphale used to say, though given that Crowley had arrived right on time for precisely two doomsdays in the past two years, the angel didn’t have much standing to trot that line out any more.

Crowley had always approved of allotments, had always appreciated any human who wilfully surrounded themselves with greenery, who had the patience to nurture life from seed to seedling, to protect it and give it what it needed to flourish until, in time, the plants would always give back. It might be a bright little flower to cheer up an otherwise gloomy day, or jewels of berries to make into jams to be given to friends just because. If you treated them with love, Crowley had always said, plants would always love you back however they could, even if they didn’t know it.

He ran a hand down one of the bars that marked out the perimeter of the allotments, felt a scrape against his palm as a flake of dark green paint came loose, stuck to his skin as he pulled his hand away. _A little love_ , he thought with a smile, _that’s all this place needs_. How tempting it would be, he mused, to open his heart and bring a frivolous miracle to that slice of green amongst the grey.

The city’s skyscrapers rose above the horizon in the distance, seemingly tiny towers that barely stretched above the rows of pretty red-brick terraces that bordered the allotments. Yes, city life wasn’t far away from that place but there, looking out across the long grassy pathways, wild plots, and meticulously landscaped rows of growing vegetables, Crowley felt as though he could breathe. He needed the sky above him, fresh air against his skin, he always had. He had always felt his freest on Earth, remembered those early days of creation when everything was new and clean and untouched, back when the Earth felt like something that had only belonged to him. For a little while, at least.

“Morning, poppet. This isn’t usually your scene, wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

Crowley turned to find Mick striding easily towards him, gardening tools balanced on one shoulder and a curious smile on his face, as if he wasn’t quite sure what the two of them were doing there together but was more than happy enough to go along with it.

Crowley looked down at the dry ground by his feet, longed for the gate to be unlocked so he could walk among the plants, so he could fall back into that part of himself. He smiled, looking back at Mick. “Fancied a change of pace. Something a bit quieter.”

“Well, you picked a good day for quiet.” Mick laughed, glancing around at the thick haze of air around them. They were the only two standing at the gates, no sound in the air but their own voices and the creaking of branches, the whisper of wind through the leaves. “Not sure we’ll be seeing much company tod- Oh, hello, boy. Spoke too soon.”

There came the sound of four paws pacing across the ground behind them, a deep gruff of excitement as Crowley turned to find an elderly golden retriever ambling towards them, droopy-eyed and greying around the muzzle, as sweetly optimistic as any allotment dog ever had been.

“Nigel, don’t be a pest.” A shout then, laced with warmth, that came from a lady in a wide-brimmed hat that was far more wide-brimmed than any hat really had any business being. She raised a muddy-fingered hand in a wave and nodded to Mick, then turned her attention to Crowley. “One of the young’uns, is it?”

“One of mine, yes.” Mick laughed, slinging an arm around Crowley’s shoulder and reaching up to ruffle the hair that curled at the nape of his neck. “This is Anthony. Anthony, this is Gloria, start making friends if you want more tomatoes than you know what you do with.”

“Give it a couple of months and I’ll be begging you to take them off my hands.” Gloria nodded over to a neatly kept plot on the left side of the sprawling allotments, where Crowley smiled at the sight of vine after vine wrapped around bamboo canes. _Serpentine_ , he thought to himself. Gloria turned her focus to dog by her feet, who was leaning heavily against her knees in a bid to drum up some attention. She stroked his ears, smiling fondly as his damp nose nudged her leg. “And you’ve met Nigel, of course. He’s mine, technically, but I think a piece of his heart belongs to all of us, doesn’t it, Mick?”

“As long as we pay the green bean tax.” Mick winced as the words fell from his lips and Nigel sat up straighter, ears curving forward as he heard the magic words: _green bean_. _Sorry_ , Mick mouthed to Gloria, who waved his apology away with one hand.

She looked down at Nigel, first, and then up at Crowley and Mick. “You, stop being a bean hog, and you two, shall we open these gates before we all turn to stone? These plants won’t prune themselves, will they?”

As Gloria unlocked the gate and stepped over the threshold, Nigel pottering along beside her, Mick tapped Crowley on the shoulder with the end of a spade and nodded towards the oasis of greenery. “In you go, son. Time to get your hands dirty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my loves, how are you all doing? What a week, eh? I hope you're all okay - I think it's a bit of a scary time for everybody at the moment so to anybody reading this, if you need any sort of a distraction or kind words or anything at all that might ease any anxiety, please let me know. I'm so grateful for all of you and it certainly makes social distancing a little less stressful to have a lovely community of friends here <3.
> 
> Today's chapter is shorter than usual (thank you for being patient with this shorter one, it's been a bit of a week!) and for me this one is a little interlude to unwind and reset before we delve into Mick's backstory by way of gardening, that will either be the next one or two chapters and the next one is coming on Wednesday March 25th - expect all the plant chats! Oh, and thank you to the forever lovely AlmondCreamTea for giving me ideas of a few bits and bobs to include in these allotment chapters - I thiiink you might have noticed one addition already :D.
> 
> Anyway folks, stay safe and please let me know if there's anything I can do to help, even if it's just chatting in the comments to take our minds off of things for a bit. Lots of love <3


	14. Begin Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on, sit with me.”

**April. Mick’s Allotment, Crystal Palace**

“Sorry, boy, it’s not green bean season yet.” Crowley ran a hand through Nigel’s deep golden fur, flexing his fingers between the dog’s shoulder blades and closing his eyes for a heartbeat of contemplation.

There had been so many days, no, years, when that moment would have felt like an unequivocal dream: working quietly, peacefully, in a garden while the sun filtered through the late morning mist, sunbeams throwing a honey-coloured glaze on everything they touched. He had started by deadheading the borders of wildflowers Mick had planted around the perimeter of his plot, initially raising an eyebrow when Mick tasked him with the job. Crowley’s ethos with plants, since the day he had dreamed them up, had been to let them grow and bloom where they would, to live out their life cycle until they went back to the earth and began again.

Mick had smiled when he’d seen his hesitation, had pressed the shears gently into Crowley's hand and nodded towards a cluster of pansies that were crumpled into themselves. “They’ll come back even more beautiful, you know. It’s a kindness, it won’t kill them. It’s as simple as energy, my boy. How can they bloom again if everything they have goes to keep these dying flowers alive?”

The old man had looked away then, chuckling as if the words he had spoken held far more depth in them than any simple gardening tip should. Crowley met his eyes, lips pressed together in a thin smile as he snipped the first shrunken stem clean from the plant. A flare of green was left in its wake. New life, perhaps.

Crowley diligently made his way through the rows of plants, crouched down by the side of the vegetable beds as he examined every flower in turn, lips quirked as velvet petals slid against his fingertips. A simple life, that was what he had always wanted. And what was simpler than that moment, that life that Aziraphale had created for them? A life where he was free to let himself be softened by the things he loved, where he could quietly build a life with his angel, a life where every morning was a breakfast in bed kind of morning, where friends would call around to pass on a box of cakes just because, and the only thing to wake him each day was a damp nose pressed against the crook of his elbow when it was time to go for a dawn walk.

It wouldn’t be truly simple, their life, not for a long while, and Crowley knew that. There was a shadow on the horizon, something they could only ever meet head on, despite Aziraphale’s cautious warning that they should lay low until the danger passed, but it was something faraway, something that didn’t have to cloud every day. And when there were days like that one, spent working in a garden side by side with the oldest friend he had in that world, the demon was brave enough to believe that he finally had that simple life he had always dreamed of.

“Come on, sit with me.” Mick cut through Crowley’s thoughts with a sharp knock against the back of the wooden bench he was sitting on. He reached down into the pockmarked satchel by his feet and pulled out two foil-wrapped sandwiches, depositing one in Crowley’s hand as the demon sat down beside him. “Time for some lunch after all of that hard work. So, what do you think?”

Crowley thought for a moment, eyes roving over the vegetable beds in front of him as he took a bite of the squashed cheese and pickle sandwich. “The asparagus would have done better with a bit more room but it’s looking almost ready to harvest. Maybe next time you could group the radishes a bit closer together. They’re fine, you know, with less distance.”

Mick let out a low whistle that ended as a laugh, one forearm braced against his thigh as he gave Crowley a bemused look. “We have a regular Monty Don on our hands, do we? When, my boy, have you ever paid any attention to this allotment unless you’re complaining that your veg box has too many tomatoes and not enough broccoli?”

Crowley looked back at Mick for a moment. Then he looked down at the plants by his feet. Next, he looked up at the sky while he tried to parse Mick’s comment. Finally, with a moment of startling clarity, he remembered that, to Mick, he wasn’t Crowley, the angel of creation, he was Anthony, enemy of too many tomatoes in the weekly veg box. It was hard, Crowley reasoned, to keep his head without Aziraphale around to remind him that they hadn’t quite made it to paradise yet, that there were still _appearances_ to keep up. Still, he had always been able to think on his feet, hadn’t he?

“Read it somewhere. In a book.” Crowley shrugged.

Mick looked unconvinced.

 _Nailed it_ , the demon thought.

“You’re different, son. It’s as if you aged before my eyes. You’re more still,” Mick murmured, looking at Crowley thoughtfully as he reached out to brush a crumble of dirt from his hair.

“Son,” Crowley echoed. He liked the way it sounded. He took another bite of his sandwich, shaking his head to dislodge any last flecks of mud, any stray blades of grass.

“Of course you are. My kids, all of you.” A pause then, as Mick glanced up at the bright blue sky above them, the clouds parted beneath the midday sun. “You always have been, ever since we found our way to each other all those years ago. We always wanted a family, did you know that? It didn’t happen for us. Not for her, at least, not in time.”

Next to him, as closely as if it surged from his own heart, Crowley felt Mick’s love, and his grief. The demon nodded, rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You can tell me. I’m here.”

Mick opened his mouth to speak, even went so far as to start the beginning of a word, then fell silent. He leaned back and sighed, pulling the slim gold chain free from beneath the neckline of his t-shirt and rubbing it between his index finger and thumb. He was lost for a moment but came back to himself with a smile, looking up at Crowley. “I think I might be ready to talk about her now, my boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening my sweet friends! How are you all? I really hope you're all safe and as well as you can be given the circumstances. I hope this little chapter was something to take your mine off of current affairs. I'll be back next Wednesday with the next gardening instalment!
> 
> Stay healthy, savour your loo roll, and feel free to have a natter in the comments if you need a distraction.
> 
> Lots of love <3


	15. The Story of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley had spent a long time too afraid to touch another soul, as if the evil in him might seep from his skin with a single touch.

**April. Mick’s Allotment, Crystal Palace**

A bluebird hopped down from the fence in hot pursuit of a curled brown leaf that might have been masquerading as a worm, Nigel the allotment dog gruffed lazily at a plastic bag that had the audacity to flap in his direction, and a demon and a gardener sat side by side on a creaking wooden bench, a pile of cheese and pickle sandwiches between them.

Mick was quiet, save for a hitch in his breath as he sucked in air to hold in his lungs until the tremor in his chest passed and he felt as though he might be brave enough to say the words he had held inside, unspoken, for those long years. _Too many_ , he realised, _too many long years_.

“It was never a grand thing, our love, wouldn’t make much of a story. They’re never simple, are they, the great love stories? There isn’t much excitement in a story about two people falling in love and staying that way for the rest of their days. She was my constant, son, right from the night I spilled my drink on her in the Den. I loved her as soon as I laid eyes on her. All that energy she carried around, coiled up inside. Her sweet eyes, a smile like lightning. It could cut right to the core of you, her smile.”

Mick fell silent then, closing his eyes and indulging in a smile that Crowley knew wasn’t meant for him. _What memory have you fallen into?_ Crowley thought to himself, eyes travelling the lines that bookended Mick’s mouth, the crinkled skin at the corner of his eyes. Laughter lines, smile lines, imperfections that were the privilege of a long life filled with enough joy that it left its mark on your skin.

“Whenever I asked her what she wanted she said the same thing: a home full of noise, full of love and laughter. And we had that. For a time, at least. We had friends, we had our families, we had every single dog with a tragic backstory that she could never say no to. We had so much, my boy, and I was so happy to love her for as many years as we were given. But we didn’t have everything. Nobody ever does. A family, our own family, that was the missing piece. We tried for a year, and then another, and then almost a decade went by. It broke her heart, I think, shattered something deep in her bones.

“And we still loved each other as fiercely as we had during those first years, of course we did, always, but she blamed herself, thought something in her must be broken, thought it was a punishment for something, a misdeed from years gone by. Still, we made the best life we could; you can’t do anything else, can you? She smiled and sang and danced as she always had but there was always a little sparkle missing from her eyes. And then she got ill. She got tired, she got smaller. And then she was gone and I was alone. I wasn’t part of an _us_ any more, I was just _me_ , just _I_. How was I ever supposed to be without her, without my Bethie?”

Crowley had spent a long time too afraid to touch another soul, as if the evil in him might seep from his skin with a single touch. As if the simple act of resting his hand against another’s might reduce them to despair or, even worse, a cursed thing just like he was. And so he had kept his distance, he had shied away from humans and animals and one particularly tempting angel, until the night Aziraphale had touched him for the first time, had taken Crowley’s face in his hands and promised him that there was no evil in him, that his soul wasn’t blackened and wretched the way he believed, that he was good, all the way to his heart. It had taken the demon a great many centuries to believe him but, finally, after what should have been the end of everything, Crowley reached out and placed his hand softly on top of Mick’s, tightening his fingers around the man’s palm. Crowley didn’t speak, he didn’t need to, a simple touch was enough to say everything a thousand words could never say. Solidarity and understanding and love.

Mick sniffed roughly, running his other thumb under his eye to flick away a tear. “I thought that was it for me, when I lost her. I thought I’d already squeezed all of the love out of life that I ever could, as if I’d loved her so hard that there could be nothing left for me afterwards. But then I met you, all of you, and I realised that love isn’t a finite thing, there is no cosmic cap on how much love you can have in your life. The five of us found each other, didn’t we, when we needed a family more than anything? Fractured souls drifting by, as if we all came together by chance, as if something brought a family to my doorstep when it knew I needed it most.”

 _Fractured souls_ , Crowley thought, squinting up at the sky and letting the sun sting his eyes as he pretended the tears that pricked there were from nothing more than the bright light. When Mick had needed to find his people, when he needed kindred spirits to pull him from the darkness, the universe had brought him a family. And what, he wondered, had the universe brought him when he had needed to know that the words hell had carved into his soul held no power in them, not really? There was only one answer, of course, there only ever was. The universe had sent him an angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good day angels and demons, how are you all on this very grey Wednesday? I hope you're all doing okay in these very strange times - as always, please feel free to have a ramble in the comments and let me know how you're doing. I'm happy to hear so many of you are okay and I hope you're all staying safe.
> 
> I think there are two more little chapters coming as part of this wholesome day at the allotment (the next is coming next Wednesday 8th), before normal service resumes and Crowley is tasked with making it through his first gig rehearsal with Lucifer and the Guys. Somebody pray for this unmusical demon.
> 
> Lots of love <3


	16. A Moment in Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That calming afternoon of creation was a small link to the old world, perhaps, but a link all the same.

**April. Mick’s Allotment, Crystal Palace**

There was a hypnotism to creating new life. As an angel, walking to and fro across the barren Earth and contemplating the gift he might bestow upon the Almighty’s creations, Crowley had let his focus centre on the depths of his heart, had let whatever lay there spring forth. It might have been a simple clutch of daisies, a towering oak tree, or a thorny rose bush, as beautiful as it was treacherous; everything he could dream into existence came together to decorate the planet, to leave it glittering with life, jewel-toned and ever-evolving.

Crowley had always found it peaceful, creation. When life as one of heaven’s angels was fraught with the insidious menace Gabriel’s ruling brought with it, escaping to Earth with Raphael and the other creators was a calming retreat, a chance to do the work he had always believed befitted an angel.

It was that same sense of zen-like serenity that he felt as he followed Mick down the shallow furrows of earth as the man turned the soil over and Crowley gently pressed seeds into the ground, sweeping his hand over the earth to lightly cover them with soil. They would water them in afterwards, Mick had said, and then leave them to make their own way, carefully and persistently, into the sunlight when the time was right.

That calming afternoon of creation was a small link to the old world, perhaps, but a link all the same. While Aziraphale had been ready to jump ship to the new world from the off, it was something Crowley had kept close to his chest, how much he was truly struggling to let go of the first home he had ever known, the place he had helped shape with his own heart. He knew the old world was broken, that it was rotting from the outside in, a dying beast in the last throes of life. But it was his world, his dying beast. How could he turn his back on everything he had believed in so fiercely, the thing he had been willing to risk everything to protect?

When he had followed Lucifer in their dream for a better world, it had been to protect the Earth from everything Gabriel might have twisted it into under his rule. From another place, from a safer home, perhaps they could have carried out the Almighty’s true wish, to gently guide the little ones through life and then, in time, to paradise. It wasn’t to be, though, of course. Still, by a sharp twist of fate he had ended up reunited with his Earth, had watched as it had bloomed and grown and then, inevitably, begun to shrink in on itself, communities turning insular, as if freedom and growth was something to shy away from, as if the individual, not the family, might be the one to inherit the earth. That world had, Crowley realised with a pang, become the very mirror of heaven, just as he had always feared it might.

It was too late for the Earth, he knew that, knew deep down that Aziraphale was right. There was no going back, not for anything more than a goodbye, at least. Forward, that was the only way to move. The past could inform the future, yes, but it could never become it. They had a new home, a safer place in the world Aziraphale had created in those desperate seconds when all the angel could do was take everything he had ever loved and tear it free from the old world. It wasn’t perfect, of course it wasn’t; it was like Crowley had told him on that day in St James’s Park as the fire had inched its way closer to them both: _Don’t make it perfect, make it ours_. And that was what the angel had done.

Crowley saw something of their story in every sunrise, perhaps the same curling wisp of a cloud that they had watched streak across the sky on that morning in Pompeii when Aziraphale had snuck out of his house at dawn and everything had been forever changed. On every lunch time dog walk he would find something of the two of them; a crepe stand sizzling with golden batter, or a trill of a Queen classic drifting out from an open shop doorway. And in their friends, their human counterpart’s friends, he saw the sort of family he had known in those earliest years, the sort of family he had never known how much he missed, and the sort of fiercely loyal familial love that Aziraphale had never known.

Of course the angel could only look forward, resolutely refused to look over his shoulder at the remnants of the Earth dying in their rearview mirror. What warm memories of that world did he have to fight for? Beloved friends, long since passed away? The creamy sweetness of a freshly baked dessert, a leisurely stroll in the park to feed the ducks, a morning spent in bed wrestling with the crossword? No, every earthly comfort Aziraphale knew he had taken with him, had made sure there was nothing left to tether him to the Earth. He had done the same for Crowley, as far as he could. But there was one thing Aziraphale could never have brought with them. The Earth itself. And Crowley knew there was nothing he could do but to let himself feel that grief, to make his peace with it, and learn how to say goodbye.

“Would you like to come back when they’re ready to harvest?” Mick’s gruff voice shook Crowley from his meditation on letting go, and the demon looked up to find the gardener smiling softly back at him, before he nodded down at the neat rows of earth, protecting the hundreds of seeds that lay beneath the surface.

“Of course I would.” Crowley nodded, found his throat thick with emotion as he reached for Mick’s hand. He wouldn’t be there when the plants had grown, when they were heavy with vegetables and ready to be picked and cooked and enjoyed. He might not be anywhere, he realised. He might be nothing at all by then, nothing but stardust and stories, if he was lucky.

“Are you sure you’re okay there, son?” Mick patted Crowley’s hand, the demon feeling every callous at the base of Mick’s fingers, every day spent working in the allotment. “It’s not normally this emotional, planting up for the next season. Not sure what’s got into the pair of us today.”

Son. That word again. That sense of paternal protection encapsulated in three letters, a pair of arms to hold you when all felt hopeless, when the world felt dark and unkind and too big to exist in. _How do I deserve this? How do I deserve for somebody to look at everything I am and call me son, to sense when I need the comfort of family?_ _How many sons have I robbed of that pair of arms? How many peaceful mornings of planting up were missed because of what I did, how I spent my years on Earth? How many of my little demonic temptations destroyed families, took love away from the world when it needed it most?_

“Hey, hey now.”

Crowley heard Mick’s voice soften, felt the man’s hand cup his cheek as his other arm rested heavily around the demon’s shoulders. It was a stilted embrace, as if the intention of comfort was more important than the physical nature of it, and it was that intention that left Crowley wiping his eyes and laying something of himself bare to a human for the first time in a very long while.

“You, all of you, but especially you, Mick, you’re too kind to me. If you knew me, if you really _knew_ me, you wouldn’t share this place with me, you wouldn’t call me son. It’s only because you think I’m…” He trailed off, catching himself before he could finish the sentence. _It’s only because you think I’m him._

He felt Mick shift closer to him, heard the rustle of a bag underneath Mick’s knee as the man closed the space between them. He took the demon’s face in both hands, pushed a lock of hair back from Crowley’s eyes and then tutted at himself, pulling the cuff of one sleeve over his thumb to brush away the mud he had left on his cheek. “Come here, listen to me. You are my son, you’re my family.”

“But if you knew the…”

“But nothing, you’re my family. I would love you through anything. Any past, any future, any mistake. You are so much more than any regret you have, any mistake you have ever made or will ever make. If you ever feel lost, know that you always have a home with me, son.”

_Would Anthony cry at this kindness? Would he grip Mick’s hand and nod and cry and let himself be seen? Would he let every fear and weakness and regret be laid out for somebody else to soothe, or judge? Or would he shake his tears away and laugh and pull back before he could show his heart? No matter. I’m not him, am I? I’m me. I’m a demon. I’ve done bad things, I’ve done terrible things. But I still have my heart. And perhaps it’s still a good heart, underneath._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening, sweet angels and demons! How are you all doing today? I hope lockdown life isn't getting to anybody too badly but, as always, my comment section is forever a safe space to rant in or distraction yourself in! I've got the Easter weekend off work so I'm hoping to get a chance to knuckle down and reply to all of your lovely comments - they've really kept me going when things have been a bit glum!
> 
> Lots of love, always <3
> 
> P.S. The next chapter (the final allotment adventure!) is coming next Wednesday.


	17. The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you know, angel, that you were finishing what Lucifer started all those millennia ago?

**April. Mick’s Allotment, Crystal Palace**

Crowley had never considered himself the sort of soul who made friends easily. There was the whole _being a demon sent from hell to torture and tempt humanity_ side of things that didn’t lend itself particularly well to striking up new friendships. Demonic entity aside, however, there was also the rather pressing issue of Crowley’s inability to trust any soul who wasn’t Aziraphale that put a bit of a road block in place when it came to the whole friendship thing.

He _had_ had friends over the years, of course; even a demon couldn’t exist for six millennia with naught but a single confidante. There had been the artists, the trailblazers, the activists, those swept under the rug, those who might have fallen through the cracks if it hadn’t been for a few well-timed demonic miracles to bring their rebellion into the light and reframe it, to help the other waifs and strays of the world see it as a spiritual call to arms. There had been Bosch, Da Vinci, Voltaire: Crowley’s personal holy trinity of some of the world’s greatest, deepest, darkest minds. Over the centuries there had been nights of debates, of shared bottles of wine, of talking until the dawn and setting the world to rights. There had been, on occasion, the moments where his companions had seen too much of him, had begun to press him about that white-haired acquaintance he seemed to adore and despise in equal measure. That was Crowley’s cue to pull back, usually. Sometimes though, he had been honest. As honest as he could be without endangering Aziraphale. Half-honest. Almost-honest. Some sort of honest, at least.

They had passed on eventually, each of Crowley’s friends, as humans are wont to do. They had left their fingerprint on his life though, all of them, in the way he saw humanity, in the way he quietly loved them from a distance, in the way that every demonic miracle that claimed another soul for hell tore a fragment of his heart away.

He had done away with friends, just as Aziraphale had, had deemed it safer to keep his distance, partially to stop humanity risking corruption by existing in his presence, as if spending time in his vicinity might slowly poison the soul until it was, in time, as black as his own. Mostly, however, he had begun to shy away from humanity in case hell had its own secret ways of finding out the truth about that Earth-bound fallen angel who had grown entirely too comfortable living his life _up top_ , as if each new friend might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a demon in human’s clothing, more to the point.

Old Mick, his head-nodding and occasional drinking acquaintance at the Devil’s Den had become something of his only friend in the old world. Their conversations had never delved deeper than small talk, the odd comment about whichever band was due to play that night, but it was something, at least, that had reminded Crowley he could be more than a spreader of foment and misery. He had cherished it, their odd little friendship, had been more than relieved when he had seen Mick’s unruly head of hair and kind smile pop up in the new world. He had felt an unexpected rush of gratitude towards Aziraphale for giving him that, for giving Anthony that connection to Mick’s sweet soul.

 _Are you really him, Old Mick,_ Crowley thought, looking up at the man who was busying himself wheeling a barrow of cuttings to the compost pile on the far side of the allotment, _or are you a copy, a clone of my almost-friend? Are you the Mick I knew in the old world, who I spent decades politely drinking a beer with when I visited the Den to disappear into the wall of sound and try to forget about Aziraphale for even a moment, as if I ever could? Angel, did you bring him with us, my only friend? Or did you rebuild him here as best you could? Did you take what you knew, what you saw when you glimpsed parts of his soul, and build him a life here in this world, or were the stories he told me today the truth that Old Mick lived in the old world?_

As Mick turned back with an empty wheelbarrow and caught Crowley watching him, he raised his hand in a cheery wave. Was he softer in this world, Crowley wondered, or was it just that he was seeing more of him than he ever had before? He thought about the way the Mick he had known in the old world was always there in the Den, front and centre, head banging and losing himself to the melody as if he needed to forget somebody just as much as Crowley did, how he would beam when a new band took to the stage, looking as proud as a parent. There in the depth of the crowd Crowley had felt the man’s loneliness, even when he was surrounded by other people, even when they were side by side exchanging idle pleasantries about Quantum of Doom’s latest set. Was it possible, Crowley wondered, that Mick in the old world had his own found family of waifs and strays, just like this Mick in the new world did? Did they have the same memories, the same lost love gone too soon? If they didn’t, if this Mick was a figment of Aziraphale’s creation, if his memories were something Aziraphale had given to him, did it make them any less real?

Crowley swallowed deeply, looked up at the sky and let the weight of it wash over him. It was the same feeling of momentary overwhelm he had experienced that day in the garden centre when he had realised the depths of what Aziraphale had done. He had created a world, he had created life. Untold lives, in fact. _He did that for us,_ the demon realised, remembering centuries-old whispered conversations of a better world, of someday, of the promises the angel had made him. _He did this for me. Did you know, angel, that you were finishing what Lucifer started all those millennia ago? As I followed them to hell, have I followed you all the way to paradise?_

 _“_ Son?” Mick asked, rousing Crowley from his daydream a moment later. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” The demon smiled, looking back at the neatly raked vegetable beds, silently congratulating himself for a good job well done. “Yes, I’m ready. Here, let me.”

Mick laughed, passing over the heavy bag of tools that Crowley swung up onto his shoulder, trying and failing to conceal a wince as the weight of it all but left him staggering. “Stronger than I look, aren’t I? Oh, best not be off without saying goodbye to this troublemaker.”

Crowley turned to find Nigel ambling towards them, great golden coat flecked with mud and leaves, as if he’d spent a very satisfying day cantering back and forth through the allotments and couldn’t be prouder to be wearing half of what had been sown that day. The demon knelt down, grateful to have an excuse to rest the bag on the ground for a moment, and let both hands disappear into Nigel’s thick fur. “I’ll see you again, boy, I hope.”

“Of course you will, you owe him a green bean or two.” Mick ruffled the dog behind the ears, then raised a hand to wave goodbye to Gloria, who momentarily stepped away from harvesting a bed of asparagus spears to call out goodbye to the two of them.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” Crowley said, as Mick swung the gate closed behind them and they strolled away. “I needed a day away from the city.”

“Hmm, it’s a tonic, isn’t it?”

The two of them walked on, falling into amicable silence as they made their way back towards the tube station that would spit Crowley out a stone’s throw from Anthony’s flat, back in the heart of the city. When they reached the station there was a moment of pause, as if neither was quite ready to say goodbye, to let go of what they had shared together that day.

It was thoughts of loneliness that had occupied Crowley’s mind as he had walked alongside his friend, the recollection of what Mick had shared with him earlier, that sometimes even he would fear that one day his precious found family would all fly far enough away that he won’t be able to hear them any more, that he wouldn’t be able to feel the beat of their wings. But that’s trust, Mick had said, that’s love, the knowledge that family will always come back, however high they need to fly, they’ll always come back home, even if all they come home for is a warm meal and to nag you about taking cod liver oil to help your old bones.

 _What will I do_ , Crowley wondered, _if the time comes when I have to make a decision about what matters, what really matters to me in this life, whether it will be duty or love or family or fear that will win out?_ Perhaps he had already made the decision, he mused, had already decided that he and Aziraphale would have to do something to save them, all of them, so that sweet man walking by his side could continue tending to his allotment in his wife’s memory, so he could always have a life full of noise and love and laughter.

Eventually, it was Mick who broke the silence. “I meant it, son, what I said earlier. Family, all of us, we really are.”

“And you would do anything, wouldn’t you, to keep us safe?”

Mick nodded, smiling fondly, as he clapped a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “That’s what family is, steering them through the good and the bad, doing whatever it takes to keep them safe.”

 _I will_ , Crowley realised with startling clarity, bidding Mick farewell as he turned to begin the journey back home, back to Aziraphale. _I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe, all of you, my family._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy hump day, pals! I hope you're all keeping safe and managed to have a lovely Easter weekend, despite everything else that's going on.
> 
> This brings us to the end of allotment adventures so we'll be back to regularly scheduled programming next Wednesday (22nd) where Crowley should be attending his very first gig rehearsal...oh dear.
> 
> Speak soon my loves <3


	18. Sympathy For the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he was going to risk abject humiliation in the name of keeping up appearances as Anthony on stage, he could at least be humiliated against the melody of his own choosing. It wasn’t asking much, was it?

**April. Mick’s Garage, Crystal Palace.**

“ _Yes,_ Little Brother?” Lily sighed wearily, leaning forward and inclining her head towards Crowley as she swallowed a bite of pizza. Between them, Sammy sat on the middle seat of the sofa, eyes cast up to the ceiling as he attempted to manifest Crowley’s impending interruption into silence.

Crowley’s gaze flitted to the left as he gave Sammy a curious look, then he shook his head, thinking better of it, and smiled, lowering his hand and bracing both palms against his thighs as he prepared to share his wisdom with the group. “Guys, I’ve had a brainwave. What do you think about-”

“If I might be so bold to speak for us as a collective, I think we’re going to boot you from the band if the next words out of your mouth are the suggestion of another last minute setlist change but please, by all means, continue.”

The corners of Crowley’s lips drooped, smile faltering for a moment before he recovered, ploughing on his with brainwave regardless. “I just…what about one late addition? As an encore maybe?”

The band sighed in tandem, Sammy burying his head in his hands as Dan shot Lily a glance that Crowley couldn’t fully decipher. After all, he hadn’t spent quite as much time in their presence as his human counterpart, had only watched them for the past eight months as if from behind a veil.

“I think we’re best off leaving things as they are, don’t you think, mate?” Dan said gently, clapping him on the knee as casually as if he was patting his old friend, rather than a terrifying demon from hell who had been traipsing around the globe (well, globes) for six thousand years. “You can have my go if you want, take charge of the setlist for the next gig, how about that?”

It seemed like a genuine kindness, it really did, and Crowley might have believed Dan, if it wasn’t for the undertone of _please, for the love of Somebody, pipe down before Lily loses it and you end up wearing the next slice of pizza she picks up_ radiating out from his desperate look. Dan was a good man, Crowley had come to understand over the months, he loved his family, he cared for his friends, he was sweet-natured and warm. He was nice. Dan was a nice guy. It was fitting then, that nice things happened to him, like his friends taking subtle hints to stop causing mild havoc on a Tuesday night band practice. But Crowley was a demon. And demons weren’t nice.

Dan looked at Crowley. Crowley looked at Dan. Dan nodded, confident his silent message had been adequately conveyed, understood, and would imminently be acquiesced to, then sat back to enjoy a swig of beer. Opposite him, Crowley grinned.

“Sympathy For the Devil, what do we all think? Solid encore song, in my opinion.”

“That’s _it!_ ” Lily hissed, brandishing a slice of pizza in one hand as she heaved a guttural roar of frustration. A glob of cheese dripped from the end of her slice, landing oozily onto the knee of her jeans. She looked down at it and sighed, closing her eyes as she waited for the intensity of the rage to pass. “Anthony. We finalised this setlist last month. Do you know what finalised means? It means no more songs. It meant no more songs when you suggested Highway to Hell. It meant no more songs when you suggested Two Tickets to Paradise. It still, in a shocking twist of fate, meant no more songs when you suggested Heaven’s On Fire. Admittedly, that last one is a solid banger, but my point remains. No! More! Songs!”

Over the years, Crowley had learned to count his blessings. Admittedly, being a demon cursed to be bound forever to the flaming pits of hell didn’t garner many blessings, which made it all the more important to appreciate what little perks there were. Like pulling focus at a crowded bar on a Saturday night, for example, or using a nifty bit of mind-bending to get his way whenever he pleased. If he was going to risk abject humiliation in the name of keeping up appearances as Anthony on stage, he could at least be humiliated against the melody of his own choosing. It wasn’t asking much, was it?

The demon sitting with a crust of pizza in one hand closed his eyes, felt his thumb come to rest against his forefinger and…then his eyes snapped open as Aziraphale’s multiple daily reminders of _no miracles Crowley, for heaven’s sake_ thundered through his mind. Damn. Well then, he would have to go about convincing them the new-fangled way. The _human_ way.

A heartbeat later, Sammy caught sight of him and scoffed. “Are you batting your eyelashes at us so we’ll give in? Christ, that might work on your hubby but it won’t get you anywhere with us, sunshine.”

Crowley huffed, rolling his eyes and wondering how much longer it would take to convince Aziraphale of his plan to sneak into heaven, send Gabriel back to…wherever it was that archangels went upon their timely demise, he wasn’t quite sure, and do whatever it was that they needed to do to restore order to their new little planet, he wasn’t quite sure what that was either but he had always worked well under pressure so he wasn’t too concerned.

“Isn’t this the part where you yell at us for calling you hubbies?” Earlier anger forgotten for the time being, Lily was scrutinising Crowley’s face as if she was looking at a stranger, which, in a manner of speaking, she was.

“Oh, right.” Crowley nodded enthusiastically, balling one hand into a fist and shaking it in Sammy’s direction as if he could barely fathom the insult to suggest he might be wed to his in-all-but-name celestial husband. “Perish the thought. What an idea. Can’t believe you’d say such a terrible thing, any of you. Do you know me at all? Hubbies? How dare you.”

The demon smiled weakly, looking around the group to find them staring blankly back, as if they were all very aware something was afoot but couldn't quite put their collective finger on it. _We fooled Gabriel, we fooled Satan, we might have even fooled the Almighty, but it’s my affection for the word hubby that’s going to give us away? Alarmingly on brand._

“Well, that was weird,” Lily said brightly, eyebrows raised as she flipped the lid closed on the empty pizza box and tossed it back onto the table. “Shall we get this show on the road then? Work through the running order start to finish, sound good to everyone?”

The three of them clambered to their feet, Sammy’s back arching in a stretch as Lily bent down to unzip her guitar case. Crowley watched them as they ambled towards the drum kit at the back of the garage, dread prickling cooly up the length of his spine. He had thought his inane requests to add more songs to the setlist might drag the pizza munching session on for long enough that no actual instruments would need to be played but apparently not. _Why do we need to actually pick up our instruments anyway? We know well and good how to play them. Well, some of us do. Not all of us, as it turns out._

Even worse than the potential of being rumbled as an interloper from another realm was the thought of how insufferable Aziraphale would be when he returned to the flat with the bad news that they'd been found out. The angel had already suggested gently, then insistently, that he fake a late minute injury or emergency that meant he couldn’t attend. When Crowley had declined to take him up on his offer of calling him bang on nine thirty to pretend a Barnaby-related duvet shredding incident meant he needed to return to the homestead, the angel had simply pursed his lips and sipped his tea pointedly. Risk angering Lucifer and the Guys further or face Aziraphale’s unspoken wave of smugness? There was only option.

“Guys, before we start can I just…?”

“No, Little Brother, enough! I don’t care what you’re going to say. I don’t care if the sky is falling, I don’t care if the entire bloody world is ending. I’m tired, I'm cranky, and I want to get home before midnight. You’re going to be quiet, you’re going to pick up your guitar and you’re going to play. Right now! Okay?”

Crowley swallowed tightly, standing up and hoping his trembling legs would take his weight as he took a step towards the guitar case leaning against the wall next to him. Then he did something he hadn’t done in a very long time. He prayed, sending up a silent prayer to the Almighty, wherever she might be, to send a sign or a distraction, or anything at all that might call off the rehearsal.

Nothing.

_Was asking a bit much, I suppose. Might have been easier to just pray for an iota of musical talent, mightn’t it?_

“Well?” Lily asked, nodding pointedly at the empty spot to Dan’s left that was Anthony’s customary position when they performed.

There was nothing for it, Crowley realised, he was going to have to pick up the guitar.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi chums and a very happy Wednesday to you all! I hope you've all had a good week and are feeling safe and healthy. I'd love to hear how you're all doing and what you've been up to and I should be about in the comments for the next few days to catch up with you all <3.
> 
> I'll be back next Wednesday (29th) to share exactly what happened when a demon who can only play 'that godawful White Wedding song' (Aziraphale's words, not mine, trust and believe I am Billy Idol trash for life) on the guitar attempts to blag his way through a band rehearsal.
> 
> See you then!


	19. Hang on to the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the time Lily was visibly grinding her teeth Crowley knew he had to think of something to render himself out of action for the rest of the rehearsal.

**April. Mick’s Garage, Crystal Palace.**

It had been a while since Crowley had picked up a guitar. A decade, perhaps. No, it was more like two, wasn’t it? The demon had walked the globe for six thousand years and yet it felt like the last eight decades had flown by with all the speed of a well-timed snap of the fingers. Ever since that night in World War Two when he’d saved Aziraphale from a rather unpleasant incident with two nefarious _customers_ time had rather begun to race by. Perhaps it was something to do with his burgeoning relationship with the angel hastening at breakneck speed from that moment on, or perhaps it was just that the world itself had sped up as the age of technology had been ushered in, Crowley couldn’t be sure. But in that moment only one thing mattered: he was definitely holding the guitar the wrong way up.

“ _Heh_.” He let out a weak little laugh as if the mishap had been wholly intentional, then span the guitar around in a move he thought at least deserved a small round of applause. A cursory clap, at the very least. There was no whooping and effusive praise to be had though, as the rest of the band let out a tired breath before turning away to their own respective instruments.

Crowley had never performed, as such. Nothing more than jamming sessions with musician acquaintances on the odd nights off he’d had scattered throughout past decades. Of course, back then he hadn’t had to worry about tuning and reverb and actually, well, _knowing_ what chords to play in which order, he just had to think about the song he wanted to play and his handy little celestial prowess would take care of the rest. It had made him lazy, he realised, the ability to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, with nothing more than a thought and the odd snap of the fingers if he felt like underlining his miracle with a little flair. Still, ruminating on how he could have actually acquired a number of skills over the last six millennia if he’d ever done anything with his downtime that extended beyond pining for Aziraphale wasn’t going to help him out of his current pickle.

With that thought burning in the back of his mind, Crowley shot the group a tight-lipped smile of apology, fiddled with one of the dials on the body of the guitar for no other reason than he thought it might make him look more professional, and then he prepared to play.

As Aziraphale had helpfully highlighted to him a few weeks previously, there was only one song Crowley held confidently in his musical repertoire, and the only reason he knew that single stream of chords was because he had used it many a time since the 1980s in a clumsy attempt to seduce Aziraphale through the power of song. Needless to say, his attempts had been met with varying degrees of success.

“Here I go,” the demon murmured, clutching a worn plectrum between his thumb and index finger and juddering it across the surface of the strings once or twice, if only to suggest command of his instrument. He’d seen a few guitarists do it in his time, as if they needed a couple of little warm up strokes to really get going properly.

What ensued was, perhaps, the longest version of Billy Idol’s White Wedding that was known to human, beast, and celestial entity. Not only the longest but definitely, without question, the slowest. It might have taken Crowley a solid eight seconds to switch carefully between chords, placing his fingers diligently behind the right frets before the next messy strum echoed around Mick’s garage, but nobody could fault his enthusiasm. Every bum note was met with a hip thrust of distraction, every screech of a guitar string was countered with even louder vocals than before (whether the lyrics were correct or not was completely beside the point), and the enigmatic hunched posture Crowley had adopted was more to do with the fact that guitars were far heavier than he remembered but he was pretty sure he’d managed to style it out nonetheless. That was until the final note rang out and Crowley was met not with the rapturous cries of excitement he had predicted but with deafening, claustrophobic silence.

He smiled enthusiastically, slapping the strings as he nodded down at the guitar as if they were an unshakeable team. “Not bad, eh?”

Sammy opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head in disbelief and fell silent. Instead, it was Dan who piped up, after shooting Lily a warning look. She held up both hands in submission and took a step back as Dan shifted his weight onto one hip, eyes cast up to the ceiling as if he was looking there for inspiration. “That was really… I loved the way you, er… Good, um, good performance, mate.”

“I just think it’s funny how-” The sound of Lily’s voice spilling over set Crowley’s hackles up but then Dan, who was quickly becoming his saviour, jumped in before she could finish whatever harrowing (and probably true) point she was about to make.

“Yes, yes, great to see you’re coming into your own with the vocals,” Dan said hurriedly, reaching over to clap Crowley on the back while Sammy and Lily stared at him suspiciously.

Eventually, Lily couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Forget that _bizarre_ rendition we are absolutely not adding to the setlist, before anyone starts, I want to know why-”

“It was my warm up,” Crowley added helpfully, giving his guitar another little slap to reinforce his point.

“It was weird, is what it was. Look, Little Brother, everybody else is too polite to say you’re acting incredibly strange, even for you, so let’s cut through the shit.”

 _Oh no,_ Crowley thought, _oh no, oh no, oh no. Abort mission._

“Have you and Zira had another tiff?”

 _Oh_. Well, that was unexpected.

“No…” Crowley trailed off, an upward inflection at the end of the drawl as if his answer was more of a question than Lily had asked. On one hand, maybe a recent tiff could explain away his out of character behaviour but that lie could easily start a slippery slope that would leave Anthony with his friends potentially referencing a string of arguments that had conveniently taken place the night before every band rehearsal Crowley had had to fill in for. For once, foresight emerged the victor, with impulsion cowering in its wake. “No, no trouble in paradise. Positively loved up. Sickening, really.”

“Mmm.” Lily held his gaze for a moment longer, then looked at the others as if she was satisfied. “Yes, you two are sickening. All right, after that _display_ we’ve only got half an hour left before I turn into a werewolf or a pumpkin or something that requires me sitting with a cuppa and a cat on my lap, so can we please actually play something so this trek south wasn’t an entire waste?”

 _Ah, of course_. Crowley winced, turning away from the others and pretending to adjust something on the head of his guitar that he had no business adjusting. In his excitement at managing to play something that sounded vaguely like the source material he’d forgotten that the actual rehearsal was yet to take place. He’d only had a brief glance at the setlist at the flat earlier that day but he was pretty sure it was more complex than White Wedding repeated in ten different musical styles. _Damn_.

The band remained patient when he came in late for the first song. They clung onto their patience when he proceeded to quietly strummed the opening chords of White Wedding and then feigned confusion about which song they were playing. Their patience began to fray when White Wedding made another appearance in place of the correct song’s chorus. By the time Lily was visibly grinding her teeth Crowley knew he had to think of something to render himself out of action for the rest of the rehearsal. And then it came to him.

Turning away as if he was lost in the music that all of the band were well aware he wasn’t actually contributing to, Crowley looped his little finger around one of the strings and yanked as hard as he could, smiling in relief as it snapped with a satisfying _ping_.

“Oh no!” he called, waving his fingers to and fro in front of his throat as he turned back to the others, shrugging apologetically. “Bloody string’s snapped. Sorry, guys, and we were sounding so great. Don’t stop, I’ll just sit this one out.”

“Don’t worry, mate.” Dan slid his microphone back into the stand while Lily and Sammy continued, Sammy clenching the drumsticks so tightly Crowley was sure they would splinter under his grip at any moment. While Crowley shrugged the strap of his useless guitar over his head, Dan rifled around in a box perched atop Mick’s workbench and held a blue packet aloft a moment later. “There’s always some spares around here. Won’t take you a minute, will it?”

“Oh. Wow. Thanks, Dan. Won’t take me a…minute.” Crowley took the dusty packet from Dan and laid his guitar on the floor of the garage, crouching over it with his back to the band to obscure his impending ineptitude from view.

Three more guitar-less songs had echoed around Mick’s garage before Sammy called the rehearsal to an abrupt halt, laying his drumsticks neatly down on his stool before he stalked over and stood next to Crowley. “Mate, what’s going on? Are you…why are you bleeding?”

It had been a stroke of accidental genius, Crowley had reasoned, when he’d sliced the tip of his finger with one of the rogue guitar strings, which had done a good job at being almost as sharp as Sammy’s incredulous questioning. Surely that would call an ending to that torture. Their friend was wounded during battle, surely that warranted sympathy, a plaster, and a cosy journey home in band-funded Uber, didn’t it?

As it turned out, it did not.

“For _Pete’s_ sake,” Lily hissed, swearing under her breath as she stamped over to them, catching her bass cable around Dan’s microphone stand, which only served to deepen her stormy mood. She stood over Crowley, hands on her hips, face the picture of absolute fury as she glanced at the, admittedly, tiny cut on his finger as if her final shred of patience had just about dissipated. “How many times have you changed your strings? A hundred? Two hundred?”

“I, well, I don’t really keep count, Lily.”

“Give me your hand.” She held out her hand, waiting for Crowley to deposit his own in her palm.

He rocked back on his heels, folding his hands across his chest. “I’m fine, honestly.”

“I _know_ you’re fine, that’s exactly the point. Give me your hand.”

Crowley had spent a long time taking orders. He’d spent just as long rebelling against most of them, and he wasn’t about to stop any time soon. He shook his head. “No. I just need someone to do the strings for me.”

“ _Do the strings_? Who even _are_ you and what have you done with my irritating little brother?”

“Lil, come on.” Sammy elbowed her gently, dropping his voice as if it would magically render Crowley incapable of hearing words whispered less than a metre away from him. “He’s just having a bit of an off day, leave it.”

“ _Something_ is going on. I don’t know what but you need to get yourself together before the gig, all right? Tonight has been a _total_ waste of time.” Lily sighed. Then she huffed. Then she let out a little bellow of frustration and promptly tore the cable from the body of her guitar. “I’m leaving. I'm going home. I’m putting the kettle on and I’m purging this entire evening from memory. Somebody talk some sense into him. Sammy? Dan? One of you, I don’t care who. Goodnight.”

Speech concluded, Lily was gone, guitar case swung over one shoulder as she stormed out of the garage with a passive wave of one hand.

“Do you think she’ll forgive me by the morning?” Crowley asked forlornly, looking down at his finger that had neither stopped bleeding nor been dutifully wrapped in a plaster, one of the little round ones that was nothing but a token gesture.

“Maybe,” Sammy offered, as if his fence sitting might be in any way helpful. “You _were_ acting a bit weird, mate.”

It came to him then in a flash of inspiration. Damn. If only the answer to all of his problems had arrived before Lily had left. Still, it might ease the tension with the others at least. It had, after all, worked countless times for Anthony. He looked up at them, eyes wide, smile hopeful.

“I can’t help it, it’s my Scorpio moon.”

***

As it turned out, blaming the chaos of the gig rehearsal on his Scorpio moon hadn’t bought Crowley the free pass he’d hoped. Sammy had given him another one of those strangely curious looks, while Dan had let out a laboured sigh and continued packing his microphone away. Still, they had both hugged him goodbye and Dan had offered to pop by and restring his guitar if his war wound was still giving him grief in the morning, so he was sure they couldn’t be too angry with him.

The sky had emptied itself over London while their quasi-rehearsal had taken place, which Crowley considered pathetic fallacy at its finest. The tube had been busier than expected and he’d spent the journey with one arm wrapped around a pole and the other gripping his guitar case, wondering why he felt so bone weary that he was all but asleep where he stood. Only the judder as the train snapped to a halt at each station jolted him from slumber, and by the time he reached his own stop it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other and drudge through the underground until he resurfaced at city level under the light of the curving crescent moon.

It was quiet in the flat when the demon arrived home and Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen, though the angel had sweetly left the living room light on so Crowley didn’t have to come back to darkness. Though Barnaby, whose eyes remained resolutely closed against the bright light, didn’t quite seem to appreciate the gesture as much as Crowley did.

“Hi boy,” Crowley breathed, flopping down on the sofa and resting one arm along the length of the dog’s warm back. Barnaby stirred, nosing the side of Crowley’s hand before settling back down to sleep. The flat was tidier than he’d left it, which suggested Aziraphale had had a little bit of leftover energy after work to run a hoover across the floorboards and lint roll all traces of Barnaby’s residual fluff from the sofa cushions. His day had gone well then, Crowley assumed, which was slightly surprising given that the angel had, horror of horrors, had to meet with an actual _person_ to discuss a deal on a job lot of vintage bibles. The demon smiled to himself, _you can take the angel out of Eden…_

A flash of guilt warmed his cheeks when he realised his relief at returning to the flat after Aziraphale had gone to sleep. It was such a rarity that he ever craved time apart from the angel that it caught him off guard but the band rehearsal had been a disaster and he didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to watch panic etch itself across Aziraphale’s face as he regaled him with tales of how the band had watched him so suspiciously. That was a conversation for the morning, when the angel had had a good sleep and an even better breakfast, and he was recharged and ready to put the whole mess behind him. He still had a few weeks to figure out how he was going to stumble through the gig itself, perhaps a last minute flash of inspiration might swoop in to save the day. It was their style, after all, saving themselves from the jaws of doom at the eleventh hour.

Crowley jolted awake with an echoing snore a moment later, or an hour later, he couldn’t be sure, though the wet patch on the front of his t-shirt suggested at least a little nap. He was the sort of tired that ran so deep the thought of hauling himself off of the sofa and into the bedroom felt like an insurmountable task, let alone adding a rigorous tooth cleaning into the mix. Summoning all the strength he could muster, he leaned forward to grip the edge of the coffee table and pulled himself up, scattering a neat stack of papers across the table as one hand slipped against the wood.

“What the…” he murmured, noticing a series of horizontal lines drawn across the width of the pages with letters drawn at seemingly random intervals. He picked up the closest sheet of paper, noticing Aziraphale’s telltale looping handwriting at the top of the page. ‘ _Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney’_ was written there, and on the next page ‘ _Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill_ ’, followed by ‘ _Rip Her to Shreds - Blondie_ ’ on the final page he picked up. They were all songs on the band’s setlist for the upcoming gig, songs he had absolutely no idea how he was going to perform in front of a crowd in the Devil’s Den, with Mick and Aziraphale and who knew who else in the audience. But why had Aziraphale written them on pieces of paper and what did the jumble of lines and numbers mean? The mystery solved itself soon enough as Crowley flicked through the remaining pages and found a note.

_My sweet Crowley,_

_I’m sorry I couldn’t stay up to wait for you, I’d fallen asleep on Barnaby twice before I gave in and went to bed. Please wake me up when you get in, I want to hear all about how it went tonight. I’m sure it went wonderfully but just in case it didn’t, I took the liberty of braving the internet to find something that might help. Did you know they can teach you how to play the guitar right there on the websites? It’s called tablature. Mind-boggling what you can do with a computer!_

_I thought I’d save you some time and write out the instructions. They make no sense to me but I hoped you might see some sort of pattern that may help. If not, we’ll figure this out together, my love, just like we always do._

_I love you,_

_Aziraphale 0:)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! How are you all? I hope you've all had a good week and are staying healthy and as happy as you can given everything that's going on. I think about you all often and reading your comments has really cheered me up on the days when I've felt a bit blue so thank you for staying in touch <3.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this one and I'll be back as normal next Wednesday (the 6th) with the next chapter!
> 
> Lots of love <3


	20. You Get What You Give

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bunch of tweed-wearing toffs bidding on a first edition Keats, sounds like a breeding ground for high drama.”

**Heaven.**

“Until next time, Gabriel.” Raphael nodded curtly, eyes looking somewhere at the threadbare skin just above the archangel’s right ear. It was easier, they had learned, to avoid looking directly at Gabriel’s face whenever possible. _Has he tried to miracle it away,_ Raphael wondered, _the rot and decay and the, well, it’s death, isn’t it? Did he try to strip it out, to replace it with that pristine mask he wore for so long, or does he wear this proudly, like some sort of twisted badge of honour? Is this what it means to serve the Almighty, can this truly be the cost of loyalty?_

“I must be off,” Gabriel said, stammering under his breath as he busied his hands picking up blank papers on his desk, reshuffling them into a pile that was messier than before, then sliding them back down as if that small action reinforced that he, above all others, was the busiest of heaven’s workers. “Yes, I must be off. Not enough time. Not now She needs me. She’s calling for me, archangel. So much to do. I'm so busy, Raphael. I’m just so busy.”

Raphael stayed quiet, as was customary when speech was optional. Safer to remain silent. Less chance of being trapped by words spoken too hastily. How many ill fates had been met because of careless chatter? They felt a flash of pain, realised they’d caught the inside of one cheek between their teeth. It happened, sometimes, when they thought of that one specific ill fate that loomed darker than any other. The bite of nails against their palm, teeth digging into the soft skin of their cheek, it helped tether them to the present, remember where they were, what was at stake.

“They’ll give themselves away. Too stupid not to.”

“Archangel?” Raphael paused where they stood, hand hovering over the door handle as they were poised to leave Gabriel’s office. The archangel had spoken in a thin, reedy voice, as if he’d already forgotten Raphael was there.

“Useless. Both of them. Depraved, the demon. He will burn with the rest of them. Justice, at long last. For one of them, at least. Pathetic, the angel. Cowardly. He’s never been a soldier. She created him to be brave, to be a warrior in Her name, to be a leader. What did he do when it was time to fight? He ran.” Gabriel muttered the words to himself, both hands braced against the edge of the desk as he pulled himself to his feet. His forearms trembled with effort, as if his bones were too weary to hold him upright.

 _I think even the Almighty might be surprised by the warrior he became,_ Raphael thought, swallowing the smile that had begun to prick at their lips. _Stay safe, little ones, stay hidden. Only a while longer, I promise._

Gabriel started as he drew level with Raphael in the doorway, a fleck of drool flying from slack lips and he staggered a pace to the right.

_Does he believe I’m a figment of his imagination, a distraction sent by the Almighty, a test?_

The archangel righted himself, damp eyes shining an insipid lilac as he looked Raphael up and down and bypassed them, stepping out into the corridor. “My angels, my followers, they get closer every day. They can smell them, do you know that, Raphael?”

Another nod, because what other gesture would suffice? A smile, a cheery wave of a hand as they bid what was left of the Archangel Gabriel farewell?

As Raphael turned to leave they spotted an unassuming figure at the opposite end of the corridor. Head bowed, footsteps near enough silent; _suspiciously_ unassuming, one might have thought. The figure looked up and met Raphael’s eyes, caught the briefest shake of the head and stopped in their tracks. The angel at the end of the corridor held up a finger as if he’d forgotten something, then span on his heel and walked the other way before Gabriel could even register his presence.

***

“Excuse me.” Raphael attempted to keep the amusement out of their voice but failed spectacularly. It was impossible not to smile at the ridiculous sight that lay before them: an angel, frozen as if caught in the midst of a heinous crime, with one hand buried deep in a biscuit tin. As Remi mumbled an apology and flopped down in the chair opposite Raphael’s desk, with three biscuits clutched victoriously in his hand, the archangel tried to arrange their features into a look that might read as stern. They were distracted by a pang in their chest, accompanied by the thought of the last biscuit thief who they had caught with one hand in the tin.

As Remi happily munched on a custard cream, miracled into heavenly existence after Aziraphale had returned to heaven a half century previously with exclusive biscuit intel, Raphael sat down and sighed, exhaling the last of the tension from their unfortunately weekly meeting with Gabriel.

“He’s distracted.”

“Of course he’s distracted, he spends his days screaming into his mirror.”

“Remi,” Raphael warned.

“Come on, archangel, we’ve all heard it.”

“It might be a…’ Raphael gave up, they had heard the rumours as surely as every other angel in heaven. “…breathing exercise.”

The angel laughed. It was a comforting sound, something that had become a too rare in heaven; a precious, joyful commodity. “Sometimes I think your quick wit is the only reason we’re still sane up here.”

“Who ever said we were sane, Remi?” Raphael sighed. They felt so tired, so old. What they needed was a rest, a break from that relentless rising tide of time and war and danger. A rest soon enough, perhaps. “Sometimes this feels like madness.”

“You’re right. It does, most of the time, in fact. But there’s a reason why we’re doing this.” Remi leaned forward, a biscuit crumb dropping from his lip as he lowered his voice, eyes flicking to the uninterrupted strip of light that filtered underneath the office door. “For them. The ones heaven forgot.”

The archangel nodded. They felt old, yes, but not too old. Not yet. “And the ones it didn’t.”

***

**April. Z. Fell and Co., Soho.**

In a worryingly-dusty-considering-how-recently-it-had-been-refurbished bookshop in Soho, an angel and a demon stared down at an unassuming brown catalogue that was closed atop the newly installed cash desk. The demon poked it with one finger, cautiously, as if it might burst to life at any moment. The angel tutted at his companion and flipped over the first page.

“At last, so it is, the inevitable return to mundanity. Back to work,” Aziraphale sighed, his voice filled with warm contentment.

Next to him, Crowley’s eyes flicked to the right as he shot the angel a glare that millennia-old weariness downgraded to a sort of tired gaze of admonishment.

“Yes, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, eyes not moving from the catalogue in front of him. Six thousand years had given the angel near enough a sixth sense for being on the receiving end of one of Crowley’s silent but deadly looks of disbelief. “You have something very important to add, I assume?”

“I just want to know, angel.” Crowley drummed his fingers lightly on top of Aziraphale’s hand. “Why is it that you get to slot back into a carbon copy of the life you had before the end of the world? Masquerading as a nervy bookshop owner? What a stretch. Me? I have to learn how to play the guitar, I have to learn what CSS is, I have to learn how to wield six dogs at once when all they want to do is chase ducks in the park, I have to…”

Aziraphale clapped his hands together and held them in front of his chest, as if in prayer. “The Almighty works in mysterious ways, Crowley.”

“ _You’re_ the Almighty in this world,” Crowley pointed out, throwing one arm up in frustration.

“I’ve always fancied being the mysterious type. Oh dear.” The angel paused midway through his sentence, spraying a mouthful of scone crumbs across the cash desk as he looked forlornly down at a pink smudge on the catalogue. “Dropped a bit of jam on it.”

Then, as he so often did, Crowley felt a rush of love for the angel standing by his side, if only because it was impossible not to be endeared by the notion of a creator of worlds accidentally dribbling jam on an auction catalogue. “Come on then, teach me how this whole thing works.”

Aziraphale pulled out a soft-cushioned stool from under the cash desk, motioning for Crowley to take a seat and get comfy; he was going to remain seated for some time, after all, while the angel ran through every inconceivable piece of arbitrary etiquette that he had learned from auctions over the decades. While both he and his human counterpart weren’t above bending the rules and taking advantage of loopholes to acquire those books they deemed it pertinent to acquire, Aziraphale was a firm believer that wearing a mask of compliance was the best way to fly under the radar. And, as all antique booksellers knew, sometimes flying under the radar was the best course of action, particularly when it came to the surprisingly volatile world of rare books.

Of course, Aziraphale had had to fall back on the safety net of miracles a number of times throughout the years but he preferred to go about things the human way, enjoyed the thrill of bidding and watching and waiting to see if he was successful, had grown rather addicted to the heady rush of victory if he had placed the winning bid. That said, there was something amusing about the angel’s insistence of doing things _the correct way_ when a number of his most precious tomes in the old world had been personal gifts from some of the greatest minds the world had ever known; after all, all the playing by the rules and adhering to etiquette in the world couldn’t possibly result in a personalised scroll from Nostradamus. Still, Aziraphale was sadly aware that those _perks_ was a thing of the past and playing the part of a law-abiding bookseller was the only option at his disposal. There was nothing for it, he was going to have to play nice. Or, more accurately, he was going to have to _appear_ to play nice.

As March had sprung into April and spring had begun to bloom in London, Aziraphale had worked diligently to line the shelves of Z. Fell and Co. with titles he was sure Zira would be only too happy to have in his collection, _ahem_ , inventory. It was taking a great deal of effort to override his instincts and grow accustomed to the idea that each new title that graced the shelves wasn’t a new book for him to read but a piece of stock for his human counterpart to sell. It had been painful in the beginning, even the thought of sending books off to a new home, but as the weeks had gone on and he and Crowley had waded through the online orders to package up and post books to their next owners, Aziraphale was left with just a dull ache, rather than a gnawing sensation that he needed to break into the Post Office after dark to retrieve the books, release them from their prison of packaging and put them back on the shelves of the bookshop, where they belonged, thank you very much.

There was very little left to do in the bookshop, save for filling the shelves with newly acquired titles, and even the smell of plaster and paint had begun to fade, replaced instead by the comforting musty haze of worn pages and weathered ink. With more time at his disposal, Aziraphale had taken to filling his diary with appointments with private collectors and booking places at auctions, if only to delay the shop’s opening by a few more weeks. He had told Crowley he wouldn’t take that moment away from Zira and he intended to keep that promise.

“So, Crowley, indulge me. Have you ever, in all of your years, been to an auction?” It gave Aziraphale a little thrill, the realisation that he didn’t know, and couldn’t guess, Crowley’s answer. After six thousand years of existing in such close proximity (for celestial entities, at least) it was a rare treat to stumble across something that he didn’t already know about the demon.

“I have…not.” Crowley dragged out his answer, as if he was all too aware of Aziraphale’s curiosity. He draped himself over the stool the angel had pulled out for him, elbows resting against the edge of the cash desk and legs bent up haphazardly beneath the desk’s wooden surface. “Tell me, angel, as I’m sure you’re frothing at the bit, what parts of my personality am I forbidden to exercise today?”

“Just a few _suggestions_ , that’s all,” Aziraphale insisted with the roll of a wrist, as if he was whisking away Crowley’s drawling sarcasm with one hand. “It can get quite ugly, let me tell you.”

“Bunch of tweed-wearing toffs bidding on a first edition Keats, sounds like a breeding ground for high drama.” Crowley raised an eyebrow, flicking idly through the auction catalogue with one hand, while the other scrabbled blindly for one more jam-and-cream-laden scone on the plate that was almost out of reach. He pulled his hand back, disappointed to find nothing there, and looked up to find Aziraphale smiling apologetically.

“I get hungry on auction days,” the angel explained. “Anyway, first thing’s first, you do not deviate from the catalogue, okay? Crowley, are you even listening to me?”

The demon turned back to face Aziraphale, sitting back up and pulling both hands away from Barnaby’s ears, which he had been gleefully stroking until he was rudely interrupted by a rambling last minute lesson on etiquette that he had no intention of following. “Yes, yes, buy low, sell high. I know the drill, angel. Remember my spell on Wall Street?”

“Yes, I think we all remember that. Black Monday, very original.”

Crowley shrugged, letting the insult slide off of him like…whatever it is that insults slide off. “Can you get to the point? I can’t sit in this suit for too long before my legs go numb. Cutting off the bloody circulation, it’s all that wily tailor’s fault. Speaking of dear Franco, did you notice how much of a striking resemblance he bears to…”

“Thank you, Crowley. Let’s move on, shall we?”

Crowley continued unabated, as if Aziraphale hadn’t spoken at all. “Was that a touch of the old green-eyed monster jumping out again, angel?”

"I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Purely a coincidence, I assure you. It took a lot to populate an entire world, of course there might be some…familiar faces from the days of yore. I barely even noticed the similarities myself.” Aziraphale punctuated his speech with a snippy little huff, as if to mark the matter well and truly closed. It was almost as if he’d forgotten who he was speaking to, as if a snippy little huff had ever stopped Crowley when he was on a very irritating roll.

“The days of yore, indeed.” The demon slapped one knee with glee. “Well, I for one was delighted to see that old rascal again after all this time. He hasn’t aged a day, has he? Looking good for a man pushing, would would it be, two thousand years old? Old Franco did always know how to sweet talk customers into…”

“ _We don’t have time for reminiscing about yesteryear, Crowley!”_ Aziraphale’s voice came out a little higher than intended, something falling halfway between a shriek and a kettle-esque whistle.

There was a brief pause, after which Crowley smiled with unadulterated happiness at the knowledge he had done a rather spectacular job of winding up his beloved, which ranked solidly in his top five pastimes. “Your voice went a bit high then.”

To cap off the moment perfectly, Barnaby let out an excited bark and Crowley hopped off of his stool to give the dog a well-deserved pat on the back. He looked up at the angel, a mock-sombre look on his face. “See, someone agrees. What did you tell him, angel? What did you tell him in your jealousy screech that only canines can hear?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, sliding the catalogue off of the desk and slipping it into his satchel as he dropped his voice back down to a level that was absolutely, definitely very calm indeed. “Canines _and_ demons, apparently.”

“Tracy will be here any minute to pick up this perfect little horror hound,” Crowley said, glancing down at his watch and nodding towards the door. “We’d better get going, lest we arrive thirty seconds late and you have your first meltdown of the day.”

“Second,” the angel corrected, smiling ruefully as he reminded Crowley of the buttered toast incident from that morning that he wasn’t quite ready to let go of.

“Come on then, angel. Show me what it is about these things that gets you so fired up.” After treating Barnaby to one last scratch behind the ears, Crowley offered Aziraphale his hand with a smile. It would be nice, he mused, after all of that time, to get to see the angel in action at work.

“Oh, Crowley, you say the most romantic things.” Aziraphale all but swooned, taking the demon’s hand and then, in perfect step, the two celestial soulmates stepped out of the bookshop into the springtime sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday everyone, we've made it to the midway point of the working week yet again! I hope you enjoyed today's chapter, this one was a lot of fun to write :D. I hope you're all keeping well and staying safe - and, if you're in a similar part of the world to me, the sunshine we've been gifted this week!
> 
> I'll be back as usual next Wednesday (13th) with the next chapter, where we'll get to see how these two fare at an auction...sans miracles, of course.
> 
> Shoutout to the very lovely My1Alias for their comment the other day where they mentioned the slight imbalance in the skills our favourite angel and demon have had to master in the new world 😂 (why does poor Crowley *always* draw the short straw) - it inspired the conversation they have in this chapter so thank you for the inspiration my dear, even if you didn't realise you were giving it to me at the time :D.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I'll be around in the comments for a catch up for anybody who is that way inclined! Lots of love <3


	21. Manic Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sir.” The auctioneer dropped the gavel onto the lectern, pinching the bridge of his nose as he exhaled a slow breath of frustration.

**April. Mayfair, London.**

“This is where I leave you, my dear.” Aziraphale paused, lowering his lips to the back of Crowley’s hand in a tender kiss. “Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?”

“If the brutish booksellers pick on me, I’ll let you know.” Crowley glanced around the room, taking in the inordinate amount of tweed on display.

Aziraphale nodded sagely, eyes narrowing as his gaze focused on one particularly rounded set of shoulders on the far side of the room. “Brutish. What an excellent word. Exactly what I’d have used to describe this lot.”

The demon looked back at him, taking a moment to gauge whether or not the angel was joking. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Either way, Crowley was fairly sure a room full of upper middle class book collectors wouldn’t put up much of a fight against one of hell’s most infamous demonic entities. Besides, he’d guided Anthony through _his_ first auction, being in the driving seat couldn’t be that much harder, could it?

“Right, well, we’d better get going. Meet you back here for lunch?” Aziraphale asked, as if Crowley might have anywhere better to be. “Remember what I told you about not getting distracted?”

Crowley tutted, rolling his eyes as he locked his phone and slid it back into his pocket. It was as if Aziraphale didn’t trust him, the constant reinforcement that he needed to be _sensible_ , that he needed to _stick to the plan_ , that he absolutely could not, should not, must not _deviate from the list_. “Yes, angel, don’t worry. I’m going to make _intentional choices_. Not getting bought into rampant consumerism just for the sake of…what was the last bit? That’s about where my attention wanders.”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to tut then. He thwacked Crowley on the shoulder and turned to bustle out of the lobby and into one of the two auction halls that were dedicated to that day’s rare and antiquated book sales.

Left alone, Crowley retrieved his phone and scrolled idly through the photos he’d taken of the pages from the catalogues Aziraphale had tasked him with following up on. There were thirteen highlighted titles in all and most of them were up to auction during the morning session. Not a bad way to spend a day, Crowley mused, something a little different from the norm, at least. He looked up and watched the bottom of Aziraphale’s jacket flare out as he rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. One flash of cream and he was gone. _How many times have I watched you walk away from me, angel? It’s always the same, a cloud of cream and determination._ He smiled at the warm glow of knowledge that it would only be a matter of hours until they were reunited. No more centuries of longing, no more decades of pining from opposite sides of the globe; just a morning of wrestling with booksellers by way of aggressive hand raising. Crowley nodded to himself, he was going to be a good demon, a rehabilitated demon who was absolutely on the straight and narrow. No more rebellion, no more breaking the rules, no more reckless decisions.

***

“I WILL LITERALLY SELL YOU THE FINAL SHRED OF MY SOUL FOR THAT BOOK!”

“Sir.” The auctioneer, a silver-haired man who may or may not have been so silver-haired the last time he had crossed paths with Crowley’s human counterpart, sighed with exhaustion and hunched forward, hands dangling over the edge of the lectern he was standing behind. “We’ve met before, sir, do you recall?”

“Sorry, pal.” Crowley shrugged, finally sitting down but leaving his hand aloft, just in case his intention to bid had gone unnoticed. “Meet a lot of souls in my line of work. Refresh my memory, would you?”

“Marazion. You purchased a _fetching_ statue, as I recall. Ring any bells?”

“Ah, of course, how could I forget?” The demon nodded emphatically, remembering Anthony’s quiet excitement as he’d retrieved his accidental purchase that had been so perfect it could only have been pre-determined. Another one of Aziraphale’s little Easter eggs, the demon had decided, as he’d taken in the very familiar work of art through Anthony’s eyes, albeit a little smaller than the original statue that still languished in the Love Nest back in the old world, redundant from its final role of coat stand.

“I’ll tell you today what I told you then: _please_ , sir, sensible bids only. We have a lot to get through today, we don’t have time for your…shenanigans.” The auctioneer waved his gavel loosely in Crowley’s direction, held his gaze until the demon looked away, temporarily chastised, and then the man looked back at the crowd of booksellers, mouth downturned in apology. “Right, gentlemen, shall we get back to business? Four hundred and fifty pounds for the…”

“Four hundred and fifty one pounds,” Crowley said, raising his paddle like a very obedient assistant book buyer.

“Sir.” The auctioneer dropped the gavel onto the lectern, pinching the bridge of his nose as he exhaled a slow breath of frustration. When he spoke again his voice was resigned, as if he knew trying to best the demon in front of him was a battle he could only lose. “Fine. Four hundred and fifty one pounds. Do I hear five hundred pounds?”

His question was met with silence. For a moment. Then a slim hand in the front row of the room shot up and a paddle was brandished with an enthusiastic flick of the wrist. “Five hundred and one pounds.”

“You already have the highest bid, sir. You can't outbid yourself,” the auctioneer hissed, voice low and threatening as he looked from Crowley to the security guard stand at the side of the room as if he might be about to reveal that the entire thing was a hilarious joke and the demon had been planted in the room as some sort of a pre-retirement prank everybody else was in on. When it became clear no prank-related confession was coming, he shook his head and decided to do what hundreds of humans had done since time immemorial: act as though Crowley was a figment of his own imagination. “Four hundred and fifty one pounds is the highest did. Do I hear five hundred?”

Silence. And that time it wasn’t broken until the auctioneer slammed his gavel against the lectern to signal the sale was closed. He declined to announce the winning bid, merely gestured vaguely in Crowley’s direction and ran the other hand through his hair, wincing at the sight of two loose grey hairs in his palm.

***

“The Usborne Illustrated Book of Snakes?” Aziraphale asked, taking the book from Crowley’s hand and flipping it to scan the back cover for any pertinent information that might explain why he looked quite so excited about his purchase. “Gosh, Crowley, I hope it wasn’t too pricy.”

The demon shrugged, as if such human constraints as budget and bank balances were obstacles that weren’t worth concerning themselves about. He slipped his finger between the pages and flopped it open in Aziraphale’s hand, tapping a picture of a thick black snake and giving the angel a little nod. “Guess who?”

“Oh, Crowley.” The angel squinted at the picture and then looked the celestial entity standing before him up and down, as if in search of any similarities. “I don’t see it. I’m sure your scales were…shinier.”

“It’s just the paper they used,” Crowley insisted, tapping the eyes of the snake that may-or-may-not have been his own serpentine form. “That’s me, I swear it. One last hurrah before I committed to, well, looking like this. Thought my last serpent-y outing should be immortalised.”

Aziraphale had flicked to the front of the book, one finger tracing the lines of text as he scoured the publishing notes for what he was looking for. “But this was printed in 1996, it's not even old. How is Zira supposed to sell this? He’s never going to believe… I don’t think Anthony even _likes_ snakes.”

“Excuse me,” Crowley hissed, feeling an unexpected need to rush to the defence of his now-defunct snake form. “Of course he likes snakes. You built him in my image, how could he not? Angel?”

“I thought I heard him telling Zira he didn’t trust the way they move, that’s all. I’m sure he’s very fond of them, my dear.” Aziraphale turned his attention back to his lunch of two slices of cake, one coffee and walnut, one Victoria sandwich, leaving Crowley to stare at him in shock, outrage, and borderline horror. A moment later the angel looked up, taking Crowley’s hand as he took in the demon’s expression. “Oh, come on, my love, it’s not as if he hates _you_. I didn’t sway him one way or the other, rather a lot of his personality was down to chance, I’d wager.”

“A deep-rooted yet unconscious sense of self-loathing? I don’t think that’s down to chance.”

“It’s a very nice book, Crowley. I just think perhaps we should keep that one for our personal collection. A little memento of the old days, what do you think?”

“I think, angel, that if you don’t ask me how much I paid for that little memento, I won’t mention the patronising way you just patted my hand, how does that sound?”

Aziraphale smiled, swallowing his last mouthful of cake. “Perfect.”

“Oh, watch out, here comes trouble.” Crowley glanced over his shoulder, catching sight of Henry’s tweed-clad form advancing from the opposite side of the room, step after step leaving his jowls quivering with anticipation as he strode purposely towards them.

He opened his mouth to speak to then, smile transforming his face into a sharklike maw, until a voice called his name and his grin faltered. He took another step forward, as if he might ignore the voice all together, but then admitted defeat and turned to answer the call, leaving an angel and a demon mercifully alone for a little while longer.

“Praise the heavens for that,” Aziraphale murmured, taking a sip of tea. “I’ve had quite enough of him for one day. Do you know he called you my book mule earlier, can you believe it?”

“Oh how, how very dare he.” Crowley raised both eyebrows in mock-disbelief that anybody could say something so deeply cutting. “That’ll keep me up at night, that will.”

“Oh, stop.” A little smile then, a dash of shyness at the demon’s teasing. “You know what I mean. He’s just so…unpleasant.”

“And clammy. Why is he always so clammy?” Crowley mused, thinking back to every time his human counterpart had crossed paths with Zira’s career nemesis over the months since the new world had begun. He would had confidently bet his newly procured Usborne Illustrated Book of Snakes that Henry’s upper lip would, at that very moment, be covered in a thin beading of sweat that would stay firmly put from dawn until dusk.

Whatever the rival bookseller had been wanting to say to the two of them it would have to wait, as the afternoon session was soon to begin and both angel and demon had planned to make a very quick exit when the day drew to a close, partially because they were determined to avoid any and all bookselling-related conflict but mostly because an evening on the sofa sharing pizza and garlic bread sounded far more appealing.

***

“We really are going to stick to the list this afternoon, aren’t we?” Aziraphale asked, knowing from experience that imposing strictness on both of them, rather than singling Crowley out as the lovable liability that he was, was the best way to extract compliance from the demon.

“Of course we are.” Crowley smiled, giving Aziraphale’s hand three quick little squeezes of reassurance. He looked agreeable enough. Suspiciously so. “There’s just one thing you’re forgetting, angel.”

“What?”

“We only have a loose idea of how money works. Not so hot on the ole, er, budgeting, are we?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, my dear. I got a bottle of shampoo for free last week, don’t forget. All I had to do was buy one and I got _another_ one for free.” The angel gave a little wiggle of excitement then, jostling from side to side in his seat as if the excitement at stumbling across a BOGOF promotion in Tesco was more than one human vessel could withstand.

“Yes, yes, still riding high on that one, are we?”

“I paid for one shampoo and came away with two, Crowley! I don’t think I’ll ever-”

Crowley never found out what the end of Aziraphale’s dramatic statement on his newfound love affair with bargains would be, as the auctioneer from that morning took his place behind the lectern, ready for the afternoon’s session. When he caught sight of Crowley his face fell and, though it must have been impossible, the demon was sure he saw the man’s hair turned just one shade whiter in the blink of an eye.

***

“Sold, to the gentleman in black.” The auctioneer breathed a sigh of relief as he announced Crowley’s winning bid. It had only taken two auctions, a firm hand, and a few more grey hairs but he had done the impossible: that strange man with the piercing stare had finally learned the definition of a _sensible_ bid.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whined, elbowing his budget-busting soulmate as the demon gave his little acquisition a little wave as it was carried dutifully off of the desk to clear the way for the next lot. “Satanic Panic was _not_ on the list!”

“It’s fine.” Crowley patted Aziraphale on the arm, adding one last extra patronising pat for good measure. “I’ll take it out of Anthony’s budget.”

“Anthony doesn’t have a budget, lest we forget.”

“Sure he does, I’ve picked up four new dog walking clients in the last two weeks. I thought you’d be proud of me.”

“I _am_ proud of you,” the angel relented, softening as he pressed a kiss to the demon’s jaw. “I just…we really do need to stick to the-”

Before Aziraphale could finish imploring Crowley to _please just stick to the list_ , the auctioneer’s voice rang out as the next lot took centre stage. “Next up, we have a first edition of E. X. Heatherley’s Seventy-Five Messages on the Revelation, published in 1955. We’ll start the bidding at fifteen pounds. Do I hear fifteen pounds? Ah, you, sir, in the cream jacket. Fifteen pounds. Do I hear twenty pounds?”

Aziraphale raised his paddle, triumphant smile dying on his lips as he caught sight of Crowley’s raised eyebrow. “What was that you were saying about sticking to the list, my sweet hedonistic angel?”

***

“Sorry things got a bit dicey in there.” Aziraphale rested a hand on Crowley’s forearm, gaze darting down at the battered cloth-bound Keats he gripped tightly in the other hand.

“Mmm, I thought a duel might break out at any second.” Crowley nodded over to one of the aggrieved booksellers who had been pipped to the post by Aziraphale’s healthy final bid. The man met Crowley’s eyes, forehead creasing in a scowl as he mouthed something the demon failed to register.

“Did you have fun, my dear?” the angel asked, tucking the book into a tote bag he had slung over one shoulder as his fingers found their rightful place against the small of Crowley’s back and he guided the demon towards the door. It had been a long, rewarding day and he could think of nothing better than a sunny stroll home before spending the evening languishing on the sofa with a slide of pizza in one hand and Crowley’s thigh beneath the other.

Crowley thought for a moment, then nodded as he realised he had, in fact, had a fun day. It had been a joy to watch Aziraphale work with such ferocity, to look so completely in his element, even in that new world. For once, it had been Aziraphale in his comfort zone, Aziraphale who called the shots, Aziraphale who everybody turned to look at when he raised his hand for a last minute bid. It was the first time, Crowley realised with a pang, that the rest of the room had seen Aziraphale just the way he always had: as somebody resolutely at the centre of all things. “Do you know what, angel? I did have fun. Oh, sorry, mate…”

The demon trailed off, raising one hand in apology as his hip nudged the thigh of the man he was squeezing past in the crowd. The man shrugged, as if to brush it off, but then his eyes lit up with recognition. “Oh, it’s you. I wondered when I’d see you again.”

As Crowley struggled to remember another occasion he had crossed paths with the handsome, snappily-dressed man, Aziraphale looked on with the expression of somebody who had just accidentally imbibed a mouthful of boiling honey, or had trodden on a particularly ridged Lego piece, or somebody who was shortly about to explode with barely-contained jealousy.

“Lloyd,” the man said with a smile, extending a hand to Crowley, first, and then Aziraphale. “Henry’s, er, assistant. I think you’ve seen him shouting at me at a couple of these things already. We spoke at St Michael’s Mount, a couple of months ago now.”

There was a pause, just long enough for Aziraphale to paste a welcoming smile on his face before Lloyd looked down to see Crowley’s fingers slide through the angel’s and understanding dawned on him.

“I, er, my remark about the _fit_ of your outfit when we last spoke…purely a sartorial observation, I promise.” He turned his attention to Aziraphale then. “Mr Fell, isn’t it? I was so sad to hear about the fire, I’ve always loved your shop. I’ve heard through the rumour mill you’ll be opening your doors again soon, I’ll be one of the first through the door, I can assure you. I’m sorry if this is rather forward but keep me in mind, will you, in case a spot on your team ever opens up? I… Well, I don’t suppose it’s a secret that my current employer isn’t the easiest to work for.”

Lloyd looked from Crowley to Aziraphale, offering a weak smile laced with just a trace of pleading, before he was promptly called away by Henry clicking his fingers as if his assistant was a curious dog who had strayed too far into strange territory.

“Until our paths cross again, gentlemen.”

“Well,” said Crowley, as Lloyd hurried away and retrieved an overflowing box of books from Henry’s arms. “He’s very pleasant, isn’t he?”

“Yes, very _pleasant_ indeed,” Aziraphale hissed, looking Crowley up and down as if he was trying to get to the root of exactly which parts of his outfit had been compliment the last time he and Lloyd had met.

“Home then, angel?”

Aziraphale nodded, then opened his mouth to speak, then closed his mouth and reminded himself that it had been Anthony who Lloyd had complimented, not Crowley, and that he had absolutely no right to feel at all jealous over something as punitive as a casual compliment paid to his lover’s human counterpart’s outfit. And then he promptly cast that maturity aside in favour of the snippy pettiness he had momentarily attempted to keep at bay. “What, er, what was it that he said to you? I’m just curious, you see. Just curious.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Aziraphale.” Crowley shrugged, slinging an arm around the angel’s neck as they pushed open the heavy double doors and strode away from the auction hall. “Something about the way these trousers cling to my arse. Well, Anthony’s arse. Is it my arse? Who knows any more. Something arse-related.”

“I see,” Aziraphale wheezed, doing his very best impression of a kettle whistle. It was an impression that was, unfortunately, getting rather too many outings that day for his liking. He might have said more, if both he and Crowley hadn’t reached for their vibrating mobile phones at exactly the same moment. “Well, that’s odd.”

“Mine’s from…why is Raphael texting me?”

“Forget that, why in the world is Lucif-…I mean, why in the world is Luci texting me?”

_I’m picking you up at 9am on Saturday. Be ready._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Wednesday, another chapter! I hope you've all had a good week and are keeping safe and well. We're in our seventh week of lockdown in the UK and it's somehow lasted forever but flown by...what is time? You might have noticed I've kept all of the chapters light-hearted since this whole situation started, both for myself and because I felt like we could all with a bit of a jolly escape from reality.
> 
> Oh, and in case you weren't sure exactly who Lloyd is (this is actually the first time he's been named!) he was in chapter 41 of part two: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20312470/chapters/51302470.
> 
> The next couple of chapters are definitely on the lighter end of the spectrum (hmm, what might those ominous texts from Raphael/Luci mean...?) and after that I think there'll be a slow return to the usual blend of jolly and melancholy :D.
> 
> I'll be back as usual on Wednesday 20th with the next chapter and, until then, I hope you all have as good a week as possible <3


	22. My Silver Lining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Whatever fates brought you two together, I should send them a fruit basket.”

**May. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

_Bzzzt._

“They’re here,” Aziraphale hissed, eyes darting to the intercom as if it was an entirely untrustworthy device that was wholly responsible for the heightened emotional state he’d endured all week since they’d received twinned messages from Raphael and Luci.

If there was one thing Aziraphale despised it was the idea of an impending _surprise_. Slow, steady, methodical, these were all qualities the angel appreciated, situations that allowed him to be in on the game. The notion of a looming surprise played on his mind, churning up anxiety that manifested in a thought spiral of _what if, what if, what if._ That idea of surrendering control felt unpleasantly close to the way he had lived his life for so many years, that feeling of always existing on the back foot, as if heaven always knew something he didn’t. No, Aziraphale had sworn to take back control on day in St James’s Park when the world had ended, and even the low level dread of a surprise day out with his human counterpart’s dearest friends was enough to leave him, well…cranky, petulant, and unreasonably hungry.

“I’ll get it, shall I?” Crowley asked, peeling himself off of the sofa without waiting for an answer. Aziraphale had been frantic since dawn, pacing back and forth across the bedroom, wringing his hands and fretting about what Luci and Raphael were planning.

A Saturday morning lay in had been out of the question and the demon had finally given up on sleep when Aziraphale had sunk dramatically down on the edge of the bed, crushing Crowley’s foot in the process, to throw his hands in the air and ask how in the world one was supposed to dress appropriately for such a mysterious occasion. For his money, Crowley had been positively curious about Raphael’s cryptic message and was more than ready to go along with whatever situation he was presented with. Why not, eh? Time was ticking ever closer to the end times, yes, but there was still some living to do (contrary to Aziraphale’s frantic bleating, the end of the world would not, in fact, be brought about by unsolicited surprises) and Crowley intended to wring every drop of normality out of the days he had left before everything about existence would change. Again. For the third time in as many years.

“Ready and waiting for our respective kidnappings,” Crowley said, leaning close to the intercom and smiling as Luci’s teasing, lilting laugh crackled through the speaker. “Come on up.”

“We haven’t even finished breakfast yet, Crowley.” Aziraphale folded a half slice of toast into his mouth, chewing for far less time than was medically recommended before swallowing it in a gulp that looked more labour-intensive than any Saturday breakfast had any right to be.

“Looks like you have now.” Crowley whisked the crumb-speckled plate from Aziraphale’s knee, smiling sarcastically as he waltzed into the kitchen and deposited both plates on top of the teetering stack of crockery that was waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher. He should have filled the machine the night before really but that documentary about bees had been too fascinating to miss even a moment of. That night, he promised himself, he’d blitz the kitchen and work his way through all of the housework he’d been putting off for the best part of a week.

When Crowley returned to the living room he found Aziraphale standing at the front door, one eye staring unblinkingly through the peephole as he muttered quietly to himself, before turning to stare desperately at Crowley. “Why are they trying to separate us?”

“Is it hard, angel, to turn every perfectly mundane situation into impending doom? It’s quite a skill, honestly.”

“Years of practice.” The angel bit out the words between gritted teeth, his expression deepening into a grimace as he flung himself back from the door. “It’s them. Crowley, it’s them, I can see them coming. Where are they going to take us?”

“I think either of us being able to answer that might ruin the surprise, don’t you think?” He softened then, tugging the angel away from the door and burying a hand in the soft curls of his hair. He pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s jaw, closing his eyes and allowing himself a heartbeat to lose himself into the warm vanilla scent of his angel. With his nose pressed to the smooth stretch of skin in front of Aziraphale’s ear, he pressed his lips to his cheek again and tightened his grip on the angel’s hand. “Just think of the stories you’ll be able to tell me tonight. Think of it as…”

“An adventure.” Aziraphale finished his sentence with only a hint of short-tempered frustration, then softened against him and slid an arm up the demon’s back to rest between his shoulder blades. “I know I shouldn’t…worry so much. I know I should relax, that I should trust more easily, I just-”

Crowley paused, falling silent as a hearty rap against the door echoed around the flat. “I know, angel, I know. If anybody has earned the right to suspicion, it’s you. You’ll be safe with them, I promise. They’re family, even if you can’t feel it yet.”

It had been a recurring event across the millennia, Aziraphale’s lack of trust in anybody but Crowley manifesting as short-tempered snippiness. It had become a way for the angel to reduce the anxious ache of loneliness into a personality quirk, the sort of grumpiness others found amusing, even endearing when coupled with his musty little bookshop, his other-worldly get up that painted him as an eccentric but kind gentleman who preferred the company of books to people. To Crowley, though, it was a facade that was as transparent as a window pane. It wasn’t that Aziraphale delighted in his own company, that he _preferred_ books and earthly comforts to people, it was that those were the things that he could trust, the things he felt safest around. Books would never betray him, stories would never sell him out, cups of cocoa and sunny strolls in the park would never belittle and chastise him, would never tell him he was wrong or cowardly or broken or scared. If Aziraphale was opposed to change, if he shied away from surprises and clung onto the familiar it was because he had to, because it was the only way he knew how to survive.

When Luci had fired off a quick text to tell the angel to be ready for 9am because they were picking him up on the dot, it had filled Aziraphale with the echo of all of those years of uncertainty, of a fear of the unknown that left him frozen, and a disheartening reminder that, even in the new world, he hadn’t tugged himself free from heaven’s grip. Not really, not yet.

“Ready?” Crowley asked, kissing Aziraphale one last time before the angel nodded, summoned the semblance of a smile, and he opened the door to find Raphael and Luci crowded into the skinny corridor, looking every inch the perfectly chaotic power couple they always should have been.

“Good morning, darlings!” Luci cooed, dashing forward to envelop Crowley in a hug before moving onto Aziraphale, mussing his hair and kissing both of his cheeks in turn. They took a step back, gripping the angel’s hands and looking him up and down. “Well, don’t you look perfectly charming? Let’s just swap those brogues out for something more suitable and you’ll look just right.”

“Something…more suitable?” Aziraphale asked, glancing at the bedroom that he knew contained nothing but box after box of near identical brogues and sensible ankle boots. “Where, er, where exactly will be heading, my dear?”

It was only as Crowley turned to eavesdrop on their conversation that he noticed Luci’s outfit, the simplicity of which was the most unexpected thing about it. Gone were the rich jewel tones, the sweeping layers and soft textures, replaced instead by a muted green wax jacket and cream jodhpurs tucked into mud-encrusted wellington boots. _Interesting. Please don’t put him on a horse. Please, Lucifer, wherever you are, if you have any say in this, please don’t put that sweet angel_ astride _a horse, we all know how he feels about horses and I can’t imagine saddles are any less hard on the buttocks these days._

“Don’t worry,” Luci said eventually, a bright smile on their face that was almost encouraging enough to tempt Aziraphale into a smile of his own. “I’ve got a spare pair in the car. We’ll have a cup of tea before we head to the range, shall we? Have you got any biscuits in?”

 _The range?_ Understanding dawned on Crowley and Aziraphale at the exact same moment, given the simultaneous widening of their eyes as soon as Luci’s back was turned and they headed into the kitchen in search of biscuits. Aziraphale caught Crowley’s eye, mouthing something the demon couldn’t hope to understand. The angel’s unspoken words were to remain a mystery, though, as Raphael took that moment to link his arm through Crowley’s and tug him out into the corridor, his booming voice echoing around the flat long after he pulled the door closed behind them.

“Be good, Zira, and don’t forget about the kickback. You, you’re coming with me, there’s champagne, slippers, and a couple of very strong men waiting for us.”

***

“Oh, that’s good, that’s _really_ good,” Crowley growled, shoulders rolling as he let out of a groan of pleasure. Above him, the masseuse who was just as strong as Raphael had promised dug his thumb into a particularly stubborn knot against the demon’s shoulder blade. The man, who had introduced himself as Javier, sighed in frustration, then continued applying pressure while Crowley smiled to himself, forehead pressed against the oval-shaped hole at the head of the bed as he stared down at the immaculate white-washed parquet flooring.

“Out, damned knot.” Javier huffed to nobody in particular, then turned to grimace at his colleague as he nodded down towards Crowley’s oiled back, as if his famous thumbs had finally met their match.

Crowley opened his mouth to speak, then decided against mentioning that all the thumb pressure in the world wouldn’t be able to work that specific evolutionary quirk out of existence. While he might not have been in possession of celestial wings in that particular body, it was reassuring to feel the echo of them in his skin, even if they were nothing but a stubborn knot of muscle that even London’s top masseuse couldn’t tame.

Over the millennia Crowley had felt as though paradise had been within his grasp a handful of times: when he had walked, alone, through his forests before the Almighty had even conceived the notion of humanity; that first night he had spent tangled up with Aziraphale, breathing promises and desire against his neck, and the five nights that had come afterwards, centuries apart; the moment he had finally, _finally_ felt the Aziraphale’s lips against his, had heard the angel promise to love him completely, always, with everything that he had. And now, to add to the list, the feeling of absolute relaxation he was currently experiencing: laying on a massage bed that was softer and more supportive than a bed had any right to be, while a man with an extraordinarily chiselled jaw line huffed and puffed while eliciting a staggering number of cracks from his tired, weary back that had spent too many days hunched over a glowing laptop.

When he and Raphael had been led into the same treatment room with not one but two cloud-soft massage tables in it, there had been a harrowing moment of realisation that they had been booked in as a _couple_ , of all things. It had taken Raphael a moment to recover, before he had politely explained that they weren’t, by any fathomable stretch of the imagination, anything close to being a couple. Still, spa space in central London was limited and couple or no couple, Crowley and Raphael found themselves silently turning to face opposite walls of the room when they were instructed to strip down to their underwear in preparation for their twin massages. A shared massage wasn’t particular cause for alarm in of itself but combined with the scattered rose petals adorning the beds, the heady scent of neroli filling the air, and the soft, sensual swell of a romantic cello piece echoing out from the speakers, suddenly the tone shifted until neither demon nor man could ignore the situation any longer.

“We don’t speak of this,” Raphael had murmured, once he was safely ensconced under the towel that had been neatly folded atop his bed. “Not a word.”

“Not a word,” Crowley had agreed with a sharp nod, tugging his towel up until he was naught but a head poking out from beneath its soft, cosy depths. “Did you…did you _mean_ to…”

“Of course I didn’t mean to book a honeymoon massage.” Raphael sighed, heel of his hand pressed to one closed eye as he contemplated the life choices that had brought him to that moment. It would be a good opportunity to bond with Zira’s boyfriend, he had thought, a day together at the spa: a massage, a swim, a good lunch of cake and champagne, what could go wrong? Nothing but an accidental couples massage, apparently. Still, once the initial shock of the beds placed within hand-holding reach had worn off, they had politely ignored any and all questions about their relationship, wedding, honeymoon, and plans for a joyous life together.

Crowley had never had a massage before. Well, to be more precise, he had never had a massage that hadn’t been administered by Aziraphale. Spa treatments, relaxation days, a stranger digging their fingers into one’s soft parts, that had always been more Aziraphale’s scene than Crowley’s. And yet, he found himself becoming closer and closer to the consistency of jelly the longer he lay face down on the bed, letting a man he had never met in his life iron out every kink in his skeletal system.

On the neighbouring bed, Raphael was deep in conversation with his masseuse. It turned out the two had a shared affinity for one particular up-and-coming artist Crowley had never heard of, and had been debating furiously but good-naturedly about whether the use of texture in the aforementioned artist’s soft sculpture was a comment on capitalism or communism. Crowley didn’t much care what statement crochet might make about society but listening to Raphael’s voice, lively and animated and so uncensored, was such a joy that it was enough to lay there and listen, and imagine all that could have been.

***

“Do you know I’ve never done this before?”

From across the little circular table that had been artfully draped in a heavy cream tablecloth, Raphael squinted at Crowley as he took in the demon’s outline, thickened by a fluffy white bathrobe and topped off with a matching towel wrapped around his damp hair, a little quiff of red peeking out from the centre knot. “Taken afternoon tea in this fetching ensemble? I must say, darling, it suits you. Brings out the gold in your eyes.”

Crowley laughed, looking down at his feet, which were encased in white slippers monogrammed with the name of the spa that he had already committed to memory, knowing Aziraphale would demand a visit, _and_ a honeymoon massage, pronto. “All of it, really. Not really a spa kind of guy.”

“Ah, but aren’t we all a spa kind of guy, deep down?” Raphael asked, one eyebrow artfully quirked as he reached forward to nab a soft finger sandwich filled with chicken and tarragon.

“Raphael, I think you might be right.” The demon smiled, impaling a helpless miniature cupcake on the end of his cake fork. “Why did you invite me here anyway? Has my posture been slipping?”

“My friend, your posture has been terrible since the day we met at…hmm, at the bookshop, wasn’t it? If it slipped any more you’d be horizontal.”

Crowley shifted in his seat, rolling his shoulders back and attempting to sit up straight for once in his life. He’d always been told off for sprawling, either by Aziraphale or Beelzebub or Gabriel or, well, anybody besides Raphael. The _real_ Raphael, he had thought, before scolding himself for thinking such a thing. The man sitting in front of him had memories and a life and a story, was he any less real because he was modelled on another? The archangel Raphael might have been Crowley’s oldest friend, his first family, but the Raphael he knew in this world, the _human_ Raphael, had shown him such kindness that he was becoming something of a new family, in his own way. Perhaps family borne through afternoon tea and champagne taken in an overpriced London spa could be just as loving, just as life-affirming as family borne through creation and survival and devotion.

After a moment of contemplation, in which Raphael finished his second glass of champagne and ate his way through three more sandwiches, he continued. “I wanted to get to know you better, spend some time with you where we could talk. It’s important to me, to both of us, to know you, my boy. You make Zira happy, sickeningly so, really. He’s changed since you walked into his life, he’s…he’s bigger, more alive, he takes up more space when he walks into a room. It’s like he’s learned not to be afraid of himself. It’s all we could have wanted for him, somebody who helped him find that part of himself. If treating you to a mildly awkward massage is any way to say thank you, well, that’s what I wanted to do.”

“Well, I’ve always thought there’s no better way to bond than over shared trauma.” Crowley raised his glass, clinking it against Raphael’s and letting the bubbles of champagne burst on his tongue.

“Gentlemen, another bottle?” The sommelier appeared beside them the moment Crowley’s empty glass hit the table, pouncing while the fizz of tipsiness had taken hold and sensible decisions, such as a mere single bottle of champagne with lunch, were prone to be cast aside in favour of joyful impulsiveness.

“I should think so.” Raphael nodded, casting a glance at Crowley for approval. “What do you say, another?”

“Mmm.” Crowley ran his finger down the embossed wine list, pausing at the third entry from the top and murmuring slowly to himself, trying to place the time he and Aziraphale had shared a bottle. Had it been the Ritz? Probably. The odds would suggest as much. It had always been one of the angel’s favourite haunts, if only for the sheer opulence of the whole affair. “The Cristal Vinothèque, that should do it.”

The sommelier left them with nothing but a nod, while Raphael fixed Crowley with a curious, yet impressed, look of amusement.

“Well, somebody knows their champagne.”

 _Shit_. Crowley cursed himself inwardly, forgetting momentarily that he was playing the part of a struggling jack of all trades and not a demonic entity to whom to constructs of capitalism didn’t apply. He styled it out with a shrug in the end, hoping his cocksure charm would suffice. “I liked the name. Reminded me of discothèque. Sounded like it would be bubbly.”

Raphael let out a roar of laughter, leaning back in his chair as he braced both hands against the edge of the table. “We can only hope it’s very bubbly indeed with that price tag. It’s no wonder Zira adores you. This is what he needs, someone who’ll order a bottle of Cristal with lunch because it sounds bubbly. Whatever fates brought you two together, I should send them a fruit basket.”

In a matter of speaking, Crowley mused, it had been something of a fruit basket that had brought him and Aziraphale together all those millennia ago. An apple, at least, had set the six thousand millennia journey in motion that had led him to that moment, sitting in a central London spa sipping eye-wateringly expensive (and yes, exceedingly bubbly) champagne with the human counterpart of the archangel Raphael. Life, as Crowley had always said, was nothing if not a joker and nobody, not the angels in heaven or the demons in hell, could ever begin to guess what tricks she had up her sleeve.

***

It seemed obtuse to refer to a steam room as _hot_ but fifteen minutes had ticked by since Crowley had settled himself down on one of the smooth curved benches that ran around the edge of the small room, and all he could think was that he felt hot. Incredibly hot. Sweltering.

“Bit warm, isn’t it?” Raphael puffed, in a classic display of British understatement. The man dabbed at his forehead with a small, eucalyptus-steamed towel from the stack that lay in a marble trough between them, and Crowley turned to look up at the hazy ceiling, hiding the smile on his face.

Whatever heat the room might eventually reach, it would never quite match the burning fury of the lake of fire that had been something of a holding bay immediately after the Fall. It was handy, then, that Crowley didn’t mind the heat. Relished it, in fact. Far from reminding him of the torturous stretch of terror spent in the pits of hell, heat had always reminded him of freedom, of returning to Earth and feeling the sun beat, beat, beating down on his skin. Well, scales, to be precise.

Of course, the man reclining to his left knew nothing of his fall from grace and his eventual return to the land of the living, just as he knew nothing of that man’s own story or, at least, the story bestowed upon him during Aziraphale’s moment of creation. It wasn’t the first time that day Crowley had had to remind himself that his companion for the day was a relative stranger, that the man of flesh and blood beside him wasn’t the archangel who had shaped his entire world view, who set out every path that had laid in front of him over the millennia, even the paths he had chosen to stray from. It was both a curse and a comfort, to watch the way the carbon copy of his oldest, most reticent friend laughed so readily, moved so easily through life as if he never second guessed a single decision that popped into his head.

“Thank you for coming with me today. I’m glad we got to do this.” Raphael tilted his head to the side, the haze of steam blurring his features until he softened into something that really could have been angelic, as if a trace of divinity was imprinted in his skin even if he would never know it. “I sometimes feel as though you’ve always been in our lives, as if you always existed in the shadows just waiting for the right moment to step in and sweep our Zira off of his feet. That sounds silly, I’m sure.”

“It doesn’t, not to me.” When Crowley spoke his voice was gentler than he was used to. It left him feeling exposed, as if he should hate the feeling. After a moment of consideration he found he didn’t hate it, not at all. It was nice, for once, to feel vulnerable, to speak honestly with somebody other than Aziraphale, even if that honesty was hidden beneath his impersonation of Anthony’s life. “It was the same for me, for what it’s worth. I did live in a world of shadow, something greyscale, until he came and painted everything in technicolour. It was as if…as if he set the world on fire around me, burning all the shadows away until we were what was left in the ashes. Not the, er, most encouraging image but…I think that’s how it feels, falling in love, as if nothing could ever be the same again, as if the whole world becomes something new in the wake of it.”

“Mmm.” Raphael nodded, falling silent as he turned Crowley’s sentences over in his mind, peeking into the unspoken corners and tugging his own meaning free. It’s an abstract thing, another’s love story, something a third party can only hope to understand if they stood in the centre of it, if they lived it themselves; but if they can reframe it, if they can view it through the lens of their own love story then the fragments might rearrange themselves into something they could understand. “The most unknowable thing of all, true love, but perhaps the most mundane. When we have that pivotal moment _our_ world shifts, it stops turning, it implodes and explodes into ash and ice, but does anybody else see it? Does anybody else even feel it? Of course not. The world turns as slowly and surely as it always has, the sun shines above and the ocean waves lap against the shore. A thousand new love stories are born every day but the only one we can ever truly feel is our own. There’s a magic in it, somewhere, I’m sure.”

 _You taught me everything I’ve ever understood about love. Patience, rebellion, hope, kindness. Everything I’ve ever believed in, everything I’ve ever waited for, or fought for, or been willing to die for. I wish I could tell you, archangel, just once._ There was a tightness in the demon’s chest as he thought back to that day, untold millennia before, when he had sat in the dappled sunlight and listened as the archangel Raphael had taught him about love, about life, about everything that had ever mattered. But the archangel Raphael wasn’t there, and neither was he, not formally, at least. It wasn’t his day, his life, it was Anthony’s. What would the dog walker ask, he wondered, if he was there in his place? What question would pique his curiosity, what would he be unable to risk asking?

“Where did you meet? You and Luci, I mean.”

Raphael barked out a sudden cannonball of a laugh. “Well, I appreciate the clarification but I would hardly have thought you were referring to anybody else, would I? We met, as all great lovers seem to, somewhere between paradise and damnation.”

There was a pause, in which Crowley tried to disguise the speed with which his head had snapped around to stare at the man’s eyes, to try and find a glimmer of recognition, of teasing, of anything.

“Paris,” Raphael continued, with a wry grin. “Do you want to know a secret? I hate Paris. I’m too much of a contrarian to enjoy something the world and its wife tries to force upon me. No, Paris will lie to you, mark my words. Give me London any day. You always know where you are with London. It’s the most straight-forward city I’ve ever called home.”

Crowley made a thoughtful sound, as if he had any idea what Raphael was talking about. It happened often enough, Raphael lapsing into a whimsical speech about the _feel_ of a city, the _vibe_ of the air, that Crowley had learned the right sort of sound to make: something halfway between _hmm, interesting_ and _I-have-absolutely-no-idea-what-the-hell-you-mean-you-daft-old-boulevardier._

Raphael swung his legs round until he was sitting up, as if he couldn’t possibly tell the story of his and Luci’s love story for the ages while laying down. He spoke with his hands as well as his lips, manicured fingertips gesticulating wildly as he wove Crowley a narrative so rich and sprawling that the demon felt as though he was watching it all, as if he might have been a passerby on that day a gallery curator spotted an artist on the corner of a rainy Parisian street and decided to love them completely, eternally. Raphael’s tale continued, leaping from Paris to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Scotland to Chicago, from the hazy days of their honeymoon years, to the darkest times of all when it felt as though everything could only ever fall apart, to the moment the light forced its way in at the most unexpected moment and they came back together.

As he spoke Crowley found the story becoming the sweetest fantasy to escape into, allowing himself to pretend, for a moment, that that was how it had all really happened, for Raphael and for Lucifer, for the two souls who had raised him and shaped him and then, in their own tragic ways, failed him. For all of the suffering, all of the loss and pain and torturous limbo of not knowing what fate had awaited Lucifer, not knowing if Raphael still paced heaven’s halls, silent and cowed, perhaps the story of their human incarnations could be the silver lining. Perhaps the trade off of heaven and hell’s tragedy was the safe haven that Aziraphale had created where they could live a loud, colourful, vibrant life together, the sort of life they should always have had, the sort of happy ending that, on the nights when Crowley dared to dream, they might truly have together, in time.

By the time Raphael finished speaking, voice thick and slow with the emotion of revisiting his life’s greatest adventure, Crowley was grateful that the lights in the room were dim and the dampness on his cheeks could be explained away by the misty heat of the steam. He looked down to find himself gripping Raphael’s hand and, still half-lost to the beauty of Raphael’s words, couldn’t quite recall who had reached out for who, or if perhaps they had met halfway when the other had reached out for comfort.

***

“I feel like a new dog walker.” Crowley shouldered open the door, skipping down the steps and turning back to face the entrance of the spa, one hand against his forehead like a visor as he beamed up at Raphael. “Man. I feel like a new man.”

“Nothing quite as rejuvenating as a pamper day sponsored by champagne.” Raphael laughed, joining Crowley on the pavement and catching hold of the demon’s hand to admire his fingernails. “Look at that, I can almost see my reflection in them.”

“Who needs a mirror when you have an industrial strength nail buffer?” In a surprising twist, Crowley had rather taken to their last shared activity of the day: sitting in reclining chairs sipping champagne while a team of self-titled Relaxation Professionals had administered the unexpected holy trinity of a head massage, manicure, and pedicure. Crowley had never paid much attention to his nails, had willed away any length that got a little too…lengthy, and had left it at that. Aziraphale, who had all but begged him over the years to _let him have a go at them with a buffer_ would be nothing short of ecstatic, he was sure.

Oh. Aziraphale. Who had spent the day at Luci’s mercy.

“We’ll see you at the gig next week then?”

Raphael’s voice cut through the Crowley’s silent musing about how the angel’s day might have done, and he found himself nodding warily.

“Ah, that…you two are coming?”

“Of course we are.” Raphael laughed, clapping a neatly manicured hand against Crowley’s shoulder. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world. Thank you for today, we must do it again soon. Give that Cristal another whirl, what do you say?”

After confirming that yes, they absolutely must give that Cristal another whirl, Crowley bade Raphael goodbye and sank back into his own thoughts, making a mental note to really, really make a concerted effort to up his guitar practice that week. After all, the gig was fast approaching and he was determined to be able to play at least one of the songs all the way through without Aziraphale yelling helpful cues whenever he forgot which chord came next. Still, even his fear about flatlining at his very first performance wasn’t enough to dampen his mood. The skies above were blue and cloudless, London was beautiful, and it had felt almost like he’d really spent the day with his oldest, dearest friend again. It had been the most unexpected surprise, to de-stress and switch off from the outside world, to indulge in something as superficial as a spa day where his biggest concern had been whether or not it was appropriate to wear a towelling head wrap to lunch. Ah, to unplug from reality and… _shit_. Aziraphale.

Swearing under his breath, Crowley dug his phone out of his pocket and squeezed the power button, staring down at the white Apple logo until the device bloomed to life. And then it began to vibrate with missed call after missed call, notification after notification of messages that had grown increasingly frenzied. The final timestamp read 11:13am. Six hours previously.

Oops.

**_From: Zira_ **

**_11:13am_ **

_I swear on the Almighty and all of Her fervent rage, Crowley, that if you don’t about turn from the spa (of all the places you could choose for your betrayal, you KNOW how much I love the spa) and rescue me from his muddy hell pit, there will be CONSEQUENCES! 0 >:(_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How is it Wednesday again? Good lord, hump day comes around fast, doesn't it? I hope you're all doing well and staying healthy, and managing to enjoy the sunshine if you've been treated to the heat wave the UK is having right now. The sun hasn't quite made its way up to me yet but the forecast for the bank holiday is glorious and I intend to spend the long weekend as horizontal as possible - me and my lofty goals 😂.
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed today's chapter! It's left me gagging for a massage and a glass of champagne I immediately regret splurging but such is life...perhaps that can be a treat for safer times. I'll be back next Wednesday with chapter twenty three, where we'll find out exactly what Aziraphale and Luci got up to during their day together.
> 
> I owe a huge shoutout and all the gratitude to two of the loveliest souls you could ever hope to know - AlmondCreamTea and Viatta - for inspiring this chapter! This was borne out of a conversation about how it might be fun to see Crowley and Raphael/Aziraphale and Luci indulging in various bonding activities, so I absolutely wouldn't have come up with the idea for this (and the next) chapter without them. Love you both wildly and endlessly <3
> 
> Stay safe all, and I'll be hanging around in the comments in the next few days if anyone fancies a natter. Let me know what you've been up to! Lots of love <3


	23. Break Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can tell when you’re not trying at something, you do know that, don’t you?”

**May. Bisley Shooting Ground, Surrey.**

“Cracking!”

Aziraphale ducked, letting out a squeak as a clay disc shattered into ten pieces above his head, cut through by a well-aimed shot. The shards plummeted down, burying themselves in the soft grass of the lawn that stretched out in front of them, and a middle-aged gentleman in a crisp mustard yellow jacket turned to face them, smiling proudly.

“Did you see that? Right through the heart.”

“Don’t boast, Gus, it’s unbecoming.” Luci tutted hurriedly and walked on, waving for Aziraphale to catch up. “Besides, it’s clay. It doesn’t have a heart.”

By the time Aziraphale reached the end of the row of wooden frames marking each shooting booth, huffing and puffing as if he’d all but galloped his way through a half marathon, Luci had pulled an alarmingly lengthy shotgun from the tapered bag they’d carried, unassumingly, on one arm. They stood with one knee cocked up against the frame, gun leaning across their leg as they turned it this way and that, apparently checking for a very important detail Aziraphale didn’t have the knowledge or the wherewithal to decipher. The angel was all together too busy trying to catch his breath and work out a feasible escape plan. After all, he had absolutely no intention in divulging in anything as dangerous, volatile, and frightening as shooting, even if the only targets within the range were made of clay. Especially not without proper training. And _especially_ not if the human incarnation of Lucifer was in any way involved in proceedings.

“Are you all right, Zira?” Luci asked, one hand shielding their eyes from the sun as they squinted at Aziraphale. “You look a bit peaky. I know this isn’t your thing but I thought, well, you’re all about trying new things these days, aren’t you? Nip of whisky before we start?”

“If you think I’m laying one finger on one of those _death sticks_ you’ve another thing…”

Luci sighed, sliding the gun back into the latched bag and patting Aziraphale on the shoulder as they strode back up the path towards the clubhouse. “I’ll make it a large glass, shall I?”

Aziraphale watched them leave with a weak smile on his face, then turned away and yanked his phone from his pocket the moment they disappeared from view. He didn’t have much time but he didn’t need time, he just needed a moment to speak with his knight in probably-dented-and-a-little-tarnished armour. “Oh heavens, oh dear, oh no. Ring, you impossible thing, ring… Ah, Crowley, this is an emergency. I need you to…”

_“…Just kidding, I’ve got better things to do than pick up my phone, learn how to send a text for pity's sake. If you insist, leave a message and I might get back to you. We’ll leave it up to fate to decide, shall we?”_

As the tinny sound of Anthony’s answerphone message echoed out from his phone, Aziraphale closed his eyes and swore in his head, where it absolutely did not count towards his six millennia tally.

“Crowley, you have to come and get me. Lucifer is about to be-, no, Luci is about to be… Whatever. I don’t suppose it really matters. Anyway, Luci is about to be let loose with a gun. A _gun_ for heaven’s sake, Crowley. I think they want _me_ to hold it too. It’s absolutely not happening, I can assure you. Send a car, or pick me up, or tell Raphael I need to be rescued. Send Barnaby if you must. Just _come and get me_!”

“Missing him already, are you?”

Luci’s feline voice poured over Aziraphale’s shoulder and the angel jumped, stabbing a finger at the screen of his phone to end the call as he glanced down at the twin glasses of amber liquid in Luci’s hands. If Lucifer’s recklessness was going to end him once and for all, he could at least go out with the nice warm buzz that followed a deep glug of the good stuff.

“Are you really supposed to drink before…this?” Aziraphale asked, chasing the question with a light little chuckle as if he was only just joshing really, of course he wouldn’t be such a stick in the mud to suggest one should imbibe neat spirits before operating a deadly weapon.

“Keeps me sharp.” Luci raised an eyebrow, then span the digits on the combination lock until the gun bag popped open and they pulled out both the original shotgun and, terrfyingly, a second. It was lean and inlaid with pale wood and gold detailing. It was rather beautiful, really, Aziraphale thought, but the sort of beautiful that would be a great deal safer decommissioned and ensconced behind glass. Bulletproof, preferably.

***

As it turned out there was rather a lot of preparation involved in clay pigeon shooting. Checking the guns. Cleaning the guns. Fine-tuning the guns. Testing the guns (which was almost enough to leave Aziraphale cowering in the azaleas nearby). Fine-tuning the guns again. Pausing proceedings to lean one gun up against the wall and sketch a quick line drawing of it because ‘doesn’t the light catch it beautifully at this time of day?’. By the time Luci deemed them ready to begin, Aziraphale was operating at fever pitch. Not only because he was about to lay his hands on the only deadly weapon he had held in his life (save for two of his most beloved worldly goods: his flaming sword, and Crowley) but because he had fired off no less than nine SOS text messages while Luci’s back was turned and Crowley had the audacity to ignore him.

 _It’s all well and good, isn’t it?_ Aziraphale thought, seething. _Easy to abandon your soulmate when you’ve swanned off with Raphael to be pummelled by an, apparently, very strong man while I’m stuck here like this, with all the hellforsaken walking and fresh air and guns. Why is it, my dear, that you get to go on a jaunt to the spa with your oldest, most beloved friend, and I’m spending the day trailing through a field behind Lucifer, of all the entities throughout space and time that should absolutely not be anywhere near a GUN, CROWLEY. I think it goes unsaid, my dearest demon, that when you return home tonight WE WILL BE HAVING WORDS!_

The first time Luci shot one of the clays it, as predicted, exploded into a chalky spray of pieces that joined the rest of the clay graveyard at the bottom of the green. The second time it was a similar story, except they appeared to have programmed the trap to dispense five clays in quick succession. Not that the quantity was a hindrance, as a heartbeat later all five lay in pieces atop the others.

It wouldn’t take a gambler to have bet on Aziraphale’s first attempt bringing about a little less success. Or a lot less success, really. A shot was fired, yes, but it was very much more skyward than Luci had suggested. The pellet didn’t seem to make a downwards reappearance, which played on Aziraphale’s mind for the rest of the day. Had he somehow pierced the heavens? Doubtful. Well, impossible really. Still, where had it gone? As the morning wore on he couldn’t help sneaking nervous looks up at the clouds, as if it might make its glorious re-entry at any moment.

His second attempt didn’t fare much better, although the pellet was lost in a very different location. Namely, the ground, which is what Aziraphale had accidentally on purpose aimed at. It wasn’t that he was against shooting discs of clay, it was just that the entire thing made him nervous. What if he tried and failed spectacularly? What if he pierced a nearby tree? What if, heaven forbid, a _real_ pigeon flew across the green at a fatefully-timed moment? He would never forgive himself, he would be a monster, he would…

“I can tell when you’re not trying at something, you do know that, don’t you?” Luci’s voice was far more energetic than their words suggested. And what their words suggested was weariness, confusion, and the first shreds of impatience.

 _I’ve angered Lucifer,_ Aziraphale thought, panicked, before reminding himself (for the umpteenth time that day) that it was Luci standing before him, a very human artist, and not actually the Morningstar, who had been languishing who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long, or perhaps they really had been burning in hell for all eternity, who knew? Certainly not Aziraphale, who was far more concerned by the fact Luci really did seem to know him far better than he was comfortable with. It was a case of hideous irony that Crowley was spending the day having to pretend his closest friend was a new acquaintance, while he was trapped having to pretend a relative stranger was one of his nearest and dearest. It would have been funny, if the aforementioned relative stranger wasn’t dumping an armful of clays into his hands while holding out a marker pen for him to clench between his teeth.

“Go.” They ushered him over to the bench behind the shooting range, one blood red nail pointing asunder. “Think about somebody who’s irritated you lately, somebody who _really_ brings out your anger. Some wanker in a Jag who didn’t stop for you at a zebra crossing, whoever decided cash machines can charge you to take your money out, anybody who has ever said _amazeballs_ unironically. Whoever. Somebody who makes your blood boil. Take that pen and write their name on every one of those clays. It does wonders for the aim, I swear. And any you miss we’ll smash to smithereens in the car park before we leave, how about that? Nobody can resist a rage smash, not even you, my sweet-natured friend.”

Reluctantly compliant, Aziraphale deposited the clays onto the bench and sat down beside them, tugging the cap off of the pen and picking up the first target. He paused, drumming the pen against the bench as he mused the undoubtable flash of Lucifer’s spirit he had just witnessed in the way Luci had purred the words _nobody can resist a rage smash_. The way they had said it was so convincing that he truly believed in that moment that perhaps even he, Aziraphale the meek, might not be able to resist a rage smash. _What an idiotic waste,_ he thought, _to cast that spirit out. How different things might have been if Lucifer had remained in the light, heralding the sun and shepherding in the stars every night. Would there have been peace? Probably not. Rebellion? Inevitably. Freedom though, perhaps._

As it turned out, by the time Aziraphale returned to stand in the box next to Luci there was a single name written on every one of the clays that he slid into the trap between them.

“That didn’t take long,” Luci remarked, swallowing a smile as they nodded for Aziraphale to pick up his gun.

Aziraphale looked down at his feet, and then he looked up, eyes narrowing as he gazed into the strip of clear sky above the tree line. “A moment of divine inspiration.”

“Ready?” Luci asked, voice almost tentative as their finger hovered over the trap, as if they were straddling a moment that might come to be thought of as something pivotal. Aziraphale gripped the shotgun, squinting a little as he nodded. Firmly. Next to him, Luci smiled. “Let them have it.”

The clay stuttered across the sky in a glimmer of dull grey, incongruous against the pastel blue sky that looked far too peaceful to disrupt. It was a shame, really, that it was about to play the part of backdrop to Aziraphale unleashing every iota of anger that had, until that moment, lay so deeply buried within him that he wasn’t even sure he still held onto it.

When Aziraphale squeezed the trigger and sent a pellet hurtling towards the unsuspecting target, he wasn’t thinking about technique, or any of the tips Luci had given him, or the fact he felt incredibly uncomfortable holding a weapon. All that was in his mind was a face that had come to represent derision, cruelty, and millennia of control. As the pellet tore through the clay and shards cascaded to the ground, Aziraphale barely recognised his own voice as he cried for Luci to send another skyward, and another, and another, until the tree line in front of them was blurred with the dust from impact after impact. There was a burnt, acrid smell in the air that stung as he heaved in a breath, and a raw pain in his shoulder that he had all but ignored in his haste to continue his unbroken streak of destruction. He was vaguely aware of the sound of his voice whooping and hollering, bellowing a cascade of insults at the sky that nobody could possibly hear above the gunshots but he knew, _he knew_ the cries of rebellion flying from his mouth. It might have come a century later than it should, or a millennium, well, six of them really, but Aziraphale the Soldier, Aziraphale the Warrior, Aziraphale the Protector had remembered how it felt to fight back.

***

“Zira?” Luci asked, teeth clasping the tines in their mouth and sliding a slither of salmon from their fork. They didn’t bother themselves with waiting for a response before they continued, assuming they had grown close enough over the years that whatever question they might have would be heard, if not necessarily answered without a significant amount of dithering. “Who is Gabriel?”

“Nobody.” Aziraphale’s reply came after a moment of thought. It wasn’t rushed, an uncomfortable brush off that he hoped would lead to no further questions. It was, he realised, a statement that was rapidly becoming true. In his own head at least, perhaps Gabriel would start to become less of a somebody, more of a nobody. The realisation that the archangel might not hold such an iron grip on him wasn’t the most startling of revelations given the morning’s activity, though Luci’s question was, in its own quiet way, much more startling. There was, as far as Aziraphale was aware, no human incarnation of the violet-eyed irritation in the new world. “Why do you ask?”

The artist shrugged, swallowing a swig of whisky and pushing a butter-glazed spear of asparagus around their plate. “You howled his name at the sun a number of times earlier, that’s all. Secret ex-lover, infuriating accountant…it’s none of my business but, still, curiosity.”

“Just a bully from another life.” It felt good, Aziraphale thought, it felt _so_ good to reduce the archangel who had tortured him for so many centuries to nothing but a throwaway reference, someone so resolutely part of a distant past that he didn’t even warrant an anecdote. No context, no legacy, nothing at all.

Luci looked up at him, asparagus standing prone from its penultimate resting place, impaled on their fork. They smiled, the lines at the outer corners of their eyes deepening, and then they changed the subject to more important matters: whether or not a second round of drinks before they embarked on the afternoon’s session was a good idea.

It was a short discussion, of course, as both parties came to the speedy conclusion that a second round of drinks was not only smart but wholly necessary.

While destroying twenty clay discs that had Gabriel’s name scrawled across them had been one of the most satisfying endeavours in his recent memory, Aziraphale realised the true rebellion was that unassuming lunch he was enjoying with Luci. While they might not have been Lucifer’s divine incarnation they were, undoubtedly, as close to a human incarnation as one human soul could be. Well, Aziraphale thought with glee, Gabriel would be incandescent with rage if he could see the angel living so fearlessly, enjoying a whisky with Lucifer’s human counterpart as they indulged in a frivolous day of chaos for no other reason than it was inordinate amounts of _fun_.

***

“On the count of three. Ready?”

Aziraphale nodded determinedly, hands gripping the shotgun as if it was an old friend, as if he knew every curve and slim line as surely as he knew the very contours of Crowley’s body. He felt completely calm, more utterly zen than he had felt for years. And then something occurred to him.

The angel held up a hand as Luci’s finger hovered over the trap. “Do you mean _on_ three?”

“What do you mean?” Luci asked, pulling their finger back an inch. “I mean on the count of three.”

“Yes, but do you mean _on_ three?”

“Zira.” Luci sighed, one hand brushing a wind-blown lock of hair back from their face. “We’re not reinventing the wheel here, we go on the count of three.”

“ _Yes_.” It was Aziraphale’s turn to sigh, which he did with gusto. “But do you mean _on_ three or-”

“Are we stuck in a time loop? I just said-”

After a brief pursing of his lips, Aziraphale continued. “There’s no wiggle room for confusion, my dear friend. Let’s make this abundantly clear. Do you mean _on_ three or after three? That’s to say, do you mean _one, two, go,_ or do you mean _one, two, three, go_? It’s an important distinction to make.”

“Give me strength,” Luci muttered, before raising their voice a moment before they jabbed a thumb firmly against the release button on the trap and sent a stream of clay birds flying through the air. “ _On_ three. We go on three. One…two…three!”

Gabriel’s name might have been missing from the clays but Aziraphale’s enthusiasm, and aim, were perfectly present. As he stood shoulder to shoulder with Luci and they fired in tandem again and again, peals of laughter and cries of delight echoing around the green, Aziraphale felt a lightness near enough pull him clean from the ground. What a joy it was to find the space to create that noise, to create an almighty mess, to break inconsequential things to a thousand pieces, and shout and scream and laugh at the top of his lungs as he did so.

As the afternoon wore on and they wreaked havoc until their sack of clays lay empty and forgotten on the ground, Aziraphale was left with the pinprick of an idea in his mind. Would the Exiled Principality and the real Fallen Morningstar ever stand side by side in battle, he wondered, defending love, defending freedom, defending the better world that one of them dreamed of and the other created?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday everyone! How are you doing? I hope you've all had a lovely speedy week and the sun is shining, wherever you are. We had a bank holiday here last weekend which was very much needed and the sun finally seems to be sticking around for a while...although now I've said that, prepare for imminent thunder and rain!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed today's chapter, I had a lot of fun writing it and I'll be back as normal next week on June (June!!! Honestly) 3rd. As per the last chapter, a big shoutout to Viatta and AlmondCreamTea for giving me the idea for these two contrasting bonding days out with Raphael and Luci!
> 
> <3


	24. Same Jeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There we go. Coasters. Just like real functioning adults.”

**May. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

**Monday**

Crowley opened his eyes to the tinny ding of a phone alarm that had been duly smothered nine minutes before but was protesting against sleep in the best way it knew how: by shrieking the flat down until the demon tugged it out from underneath his pillow and snoozed it, growling under his breath.

On the first few mornings after they had taken control of their human counterparts Crowley had leaped out of bed with the dawn, raring to snap Barnaby’s lead onto his collar and begin his morning rounds of dog walking. A jaunty stroll through London had been a great way to start the day, leaving him refreshed for a morning of attempting to Google his way through the most basic elements of web design, before it all began again each afternoon.

And then things had begun to change.

It might have been the novelty of human existence wearing off. It might have been the growing dread that soon they would have to stand up for the new world and do something, anything, to save their safe new haven from Gabriel’s clutches. It might have been lethargy setting in after weeks of surviving on too many takeaways and not enough water, too many late nights and not a shred of exercise beyond a power walk to the fridge. If the angel and demon were honest, it was probably the latter.

“This place is a disaster,” Crowley grumbled, standing in the doorway of the bedroom and staring out across the living room. He hadn’t noticed the extent of the disarray until that moment but _disaster_ was far too kind a word to describe their current living situation. His favourite phrase had quickly become _I’ll do it later, I promise_ , while Aziraphale’s go to excuse to delay chores was _after a nap, I swear_. Neither was conducive to a pleasant living space.

As it turned out, empty promises had become their bread and butter, which was precisely why Crowley found himself gazing blearily at a graveyard of vinegar-stained newspaper sheets from the previous week’s fish and chips, pizza boxes that could have been a day or a week old, and a mysterious mug that had been sitting unloved on the coffee table for so long it had begun to play host to a rather diverse ecosystem. There was a smell too, something tangy that was probably dairy-based, mingling with the musty heat of a room that was in desperate need of an airing.

The demon sighed, looking back over his shoulder at a nondescript lump under the duvet that was only recognisable as Aziraphale because a halo of white hair peeked out at the head of the bed. _If you think I’m doing this alone, angel,_ Crowley thought, turning back and creeping around the side of the bed, _you’re sorely mistaken._

“What in the _devil_ do you think you’re… Crowley, what are you doing?” Aziraphale’s voice was groggy, sharpening to a tight scold as he unscrewed one eye wide enough to glare in the demon’s direction. Unperturbed, Crowley resumed his relentless shaking of Aziraphale’s shoulder until the angel gave in, heaving out a laboured breath as he sat up and hunched over, hands draped over his thighs as he gave Crowley a pitiful look of sorrow. “I was trying to have a lay in.”

“Don’t say that like it's a treat, as if you don’t sleep in until lunch time every day.” Crowley tutted, reaching for one of Aziraphale’s hands and yanking at his wrist until the angel groaned in protest.

“Why are you doing this?” Aziraphale asked bleakly, as if being woken before midday was naught but a malicious and calculated attack. He blinked a couple of times, waiting for Crowley to come into focus properly. “Why are your eyes so manic?”

“Look.” Crowley pointed out to the living room, waiting for the penny to drop as Aziraphale had the exact same jolt of realisation that he had.

“What am I looking at? I don’t see… Oh, oh, I see what you mean.” Aziraphale nodded wisely, patting Crowley on his cool forearm as his cheeks flushed with affection. He was such a soft demon really, so sensitive, his sweet Crowley. “You’re quite right, the light does look extraordinarily beautiful at this time of morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me I don’t intend to head to the shop for a few more hours so…”

“No, angel, I don’t mean the…” Crowley trailed off as he turned to follow Aziraphale’s gaze and spotted the golden beams of light streaming in through the window and painting the living room with a fiery hue. The room was filthy, yes, but beautiful too. Aziraphale was right, of course, his romantic angel. As Aziraphale smiled victoriously and curled back up against the warm, clammy sheets, Crowley shook his head to snap himself free from the dawn light’s spell. “No, I’m not falling for that one again. Look at this place, it’s a mess. We’re taking today off and we’re getting our lives together. First we’re going to clean up the flat and then we’re going to clean up our own act. Get some exercise, drink some water, all of that, you know? Self-care, mindfulness, hydration, the whole shebang.”

***

“When this alarm goes off we have another drink, okay?” Crowley slipped his phone back into his pocket, setting an empty glass down on the coffee table and frowning as he watched a bead of condensation slip down the side of the glass and settle against the wood grain. He fumbled around in one of the table’s drawers and held a coaster aloft, victoriously, a moment later. “There we go. Coasters. Just like real functioning adults.”

“I didn’t realise it had got so out of control,” Aziraphale lamented, leaning close to the mirror and running a hang through his shaggy locks. “It just grows and grows, doesn’t it? How _do_ they keep on top of it? Bodies are just…non-stop maintenance, aren’t they? If they’re not hungry then they’re thirsty, and if you’re not in need of a haircut then every other news story is telling you to go to the gym or eat kale or drink eggs or some such. It’s too much, Crowley. We should just…we should just pick one thing and do it really well.”

Crowley reached out, ruffling Aziraphale’s hair as he ducked behind him in search of a bucket of cleaning products he was sure he’d seen during a late night sweep of the cupboards for an emergency bottle of wine. “Afraid it doesn’t work like that, angel. Here, grab a cloth.”

Aziraphale, in a turn of events that surprised nobody at all, wasn’t particularly well-versed at cleaning. A cursory sweep? He had got rather good at it over the years. Loading the plates into the dishwasher? When they’d exhausted all other items to eat off of, including the chopping boards, he might do so with a grunt and a sigh. But dusting? No, dusting was something Aziraphale only indulged in when there was literally nothing else he could possibly dream up to occupy his time. And there were _plenty_ of things Aziraphale could think of that he’d rather do that morning. Namely, take a nap, or have a snack, or even have a little lay down on the sofa to rest his feet. He had, after all, been slowly making his way around the flat polishing every available surface for near forty minutes and that, as far as the angel was concerned, was forty minutes too long.

“Crowley,” he gasped, clutching his side and bending double as a sting shot through his ribs. “Can we stop for a minute? It’s too much. The fumes, all the bending and kneeling, I need a rest.”

“Fine.” Crowley sighed, as he propelled the vacuum cleaner’s canister of dirt into the bin and promptly coughed as a cloud of murk wafted up into his face. “The water alarm is going to go off any minute. We might as well take a water break.”

“ _Another_ one?” Aziraphale cried, looking at the demon in dismay. Barely an hour had gone by since they’d last forced themselves to glug an entire glass of water in one sitting. If he kept this up he’d be more water than, well, human-cum-angel by sunset.

“I told you, angel. Two litres a day. Minimum. Dehydration accounts for thirty two percent of all…”

“Don’t start that again, Crowley!” Aziraphale held up a warning hand as the other cupped a half drunk glass of water. It was so…boring. Not even an infusion of tea leaves to keep it interesting. No rose petals, no strawberry slices. A tot of gin felt like a pipe dream. No, it seemed as though there was nothing in Aziraphale’s future but regular bedtimes, weekly cleaning hours, and water guzzles every ninety minutes. Life as a human, the angel decided, was bleak.

***

**Tuesday**

If the previous day had been dedicated to getting the flat in some sort of hygienic state, the focus of that particular Tuesday was laundry. It was a cursed job, in Crowley’s opinion. A true waste of time, a hellforsaken chore dreamed up by Satan to test humans to their absolute limits. It required skill, know-how, determination and, presenting the biggest problem to one demon in particular, patience.

To a human, laundry might not seem like the most difficult chore in existence: gather laundry, bung in the washing machine, add products, start. Light years away from the mysterious complexities of, say, folding a fitted sheet. Deity-tier levels of skill were required for that particular job and every human under the sun knew it. Poor, unsuspecting Crowley, however, was having too much trouble with getting the laundry washed to even contemplate how he was going to summon up the enthusiasm to fold it once it was clean. If it ever got clean, of course.

Laundry had ranked near the bottom of Crowley’s list of priorities, given that Aziraphale had a wardrobe full of identical outfits to choose from each morning, and he’d be damned (double-damned, perhaps) if he was going to be pried from his favourite jeans. That was, at least, until Aziraphale had realised too late that he’d worn his final pair of underpants and had had to go commando to a meeting the previous afternoon. He’d returned no less worse for wear and the meeting had taken place without major incident, although he had declared it incredibly brisk up the trouser leg when the wind had picked up as he’d walked back through Fitzrovia. The angel’s chilly thighs had been the first event the boost laundry further up the priority ranking. The deciding factor had been the moment the previous night when Crowley had stripped off his trusty jeans and caught a disturbing whiff rising up from them. One more outing without being washed, it seemed, and there was a good chance the jeans would stand up and walk out of the flat to have an adventure of their very own.

And lo, Tuesday was to be laundry day.

During their time on Earth, Crowley and Aziraphale had never been constrained by petty things like changing their clothes or battling with washing machines to release the door when it seemed determined to stay locked. A click of the fingers would remove any stains or unwanted creases, and nothing more complex than a passing thought was needed for a complete wardrobe change to take place. it was like magic, really. Except it wasn't magic. It was a miracle. And, for the time being, miracles were well and truly banned. That said, Crowley had been battling with the washing machine for close to an hour and was both hungry and tired enough to contemplate laying down on the kitchen floor (which was, after the previous day’s efforts, thankfully free from crumbs) and surrendering to Gabriel’s wrath just to escape the hell of soft rinse and laundry pods that he currently found himself in.

Soft footsteps padded across the kitchen tiles and Crowley felt a warm chin rest on his shoulder as a hand slid down the length of his thigh. He smiled. If anybody could bring him back from the brink with their mere presence it was Aziraphale. Crowley turned to catch the angel’s lips with his own, lingering for a moment or two to kiss him for just a heartbeat longer. "What are you doing up? Did I wake you, I was trying to keep it down?”

“I was in search of a snack.” Aziraphale confessed, chasing his words with a little laugh. “Leave this for a while, have breakfast with me instead. It’s nice and bright outside, let’s open the windows and forget about being responsible humans for a while. Let’s just be an angel and a demon having croissants and tea while we talk about the impending end of the world.”

As it turned out, Crowley wasn’t the only agent of temptation in the relationship, and so he found himself unfurling from his hunched position on the kitchen floor and stretching up to crack his weary back, before following Aziraphale to settle down at the dining table. _Just a little break,_ he thought to himself, _and then I’ll get right back to it._

Of course, Crowley hadn’t got right back to it after his _little break_ with Aziraphale. Breakfast had turned into brunch, and then the moment Crowley had suggested they get back to their to do list a blue tit had flown in through the open window and the next forty minutes had been taken up with Aziraphale capturing and releasing the bird while Crowley flapped around the living room, shrieking, with Barnaby in tow. Then there had been a brief recess for water, as per their regularly scheduled alarm that Aziraphale was beginning to lose patience with. Next had been Crowley’s brainwave to wash not only their clothes but also their bedsheets, which had all but gained enough sentience to sit their own IQ test. It had been going well, their attempt to strip the bed, until Aziraphale had taken an accidental-but-probably-on-purpose tumble onto the mattress and Crowley had simply _had_ to spend the next two hours checking the angel for bruises in meticulous, thorough, impassioned detail.

One could easily summarise the situation by saying _life_ got in the way of things until the sun began to set and the washing machine finally began to spin, though both angel and demon had decreed the fact they had got the damned thing to work at all a runaway success. Aziraphale was pouring their second celebratory glasses of champagne when there was a buzz at the intercom. The angel looked up, confused. “Crowley? Is somebody coming over?”

“Oh, no, I know what that is.” The demon grinned, buzzing the visitor into the building and waiting for a knock at the door.

A moment later he sat down on the sofa, balancing the cardboard package across both knees as he ripped into it, pulling a contraption free that looked halfway between a belt and a horse’s bridle.

“What in the world is that?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing it dubiously. He reached out a finger and flicked one of the metal clips. “If you wanted to spice things up you could have just asked.”

“This is…wait, what?” Crowley considered Aziraphale’s words for a moment, then shook his head and continued. “Humans are always talking about multi-tasking, aren’t they? Boosting productivity by multi-tasking, that’s one of the tips I read in the book.”

“The book. Of course.”

“Yes. The book. You’d do well to listen to what it says if you don’t want your cortisol levels spiking.”

“My…” Aziraphale trailed off, and then he gave up, realising resistance was futile and gesturing for Crowley to continue. “Never mind. As you were.”

“I want, nay, _need_ to get more exercise, don’t I? Well, _I_ don’t but this fragile human suit I’m wearing does. It would be nice to walk up the stairs when the lift’s broken and not feel like my lungs are going to give up, wouldn’t it? Anyway, I spend so much of my day out with the dogs I thought why not combine the two? Instead of _walking_ why don’t I try my hand at running? Anthony was always thinking about running! Maybe I can do some of the groundwork and hand him back a fully-functioning body that can run more than a hundred feet before it needs to sit on a bench and recover from the shock.”

“That’s all very nice, my dear, but it doesn’t explain this.” Aziraphale gave the contraption another wary gaze, ducking his head as if viewing it from underneath might help solve the mystery.

“See, it’s very simple.” Crowley stood up, snapping the belt around his waist and retrieving Barnaby’s lead from the hook by the door.The dog’s ears were pricked as he trotted over and sat obediently by the front door, smile wide as he anticipated an unexpected walk. What had he done to deserve this extra treat? Had he been a good boy, he wondered? Of course he had, he decided. Of course he had been a good boy.

Crowley snapped the lead onto the dog’s collar and fastened the other end to one of the metal clips that hung from the belt. There were six of them in total, which filled Aziraphale with dread as understanding dawned on him. 

“Crowley, you’re not…”

“I am.” The demon nodded proudly, hands resting on his hips as he jutted his pelvis towards the angel. In front of him, Barnaby leaped to his feet and made for the door, leaving the demon staggering forward and bracing both hands against the front door to stop himself from falling. He looked back over his shoulder, giving the angel a reassuring wave. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be better than fine, it’ll be great. You’ll see, this is the best idea I’ve had all day. No, all week!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends! Angels! Demons! It's another Wednesday. I swear they roll around faster and faster these days but...what is time?
> 
> I hope you're all safe and well with everything that is going on in the world and that you enjoyed today's chapter. That feels like a frivolous thing to say considering the events of the last week but, even so, I hope it gave you a short escape from reality at least.
> 
> I'll be back as usual next Wednesday with chapter 25, where we'll find out how Crowley's great dog walking/running expedition goes!
> 
> Speak soon, friends. Stay well <3
> 
> P.S. This week's chapter title is taken from Same Jeans by The View which you can find on the IY Part III playlist on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cg2M5HKvnoTPYStsMT0c6)


	25. (Get Your) Body Moving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been suggested once or twice, unfailingly by Aziraphale, that Crowley could occasionally be prone to fits of drama.

**May. St James’s Park, London.**

“Barnaby,” Crowley wheezed, legs pumping like pistons as he sprinted across the grass pelvis-first, tugged towards a very enticing squirrel by a pack of excited dogs who were following their fearless leader. “Barnaby, slow down. Stop! STOP!”

Barnaby was out in front, an inky black streak against the vibrant spring grass, tail whipping back and forth as he continued on in pursuit of the rodent he was sure was the very same that had been inciting a chase for some weeks now. Focused on nothing but the bushy grey tail six feet ahead of him, the dog bounded on, relishing the feeling of the wind in his fur and his friends dashing along behind him. He was vaguely aware of the rising din of hysteria in the background but the thrill of the chase was overpowering and he didn’t stop until he was nose to bark with a wide oak tree that the dastardly squirrel scampered up before he could pounce.

A second later there was a crash as something, which happened to be yelling very loudly, barrelled past and smacked against the tree’s gnarled trunk. Sensing they might have made a slight error of judgement that could very well lead to a harrowing absence of treats, the dogs sat down in perfect unison and wagged their tails weakly as they waited for Crowley to unpeel himself from the tree.

“Ow. Ow, ow, ow.” The demon brushed loose bark from his hair and pressed one hand to the back of his forehead to try and calm the headache that had begun to bloom a heartbeat after his forehead had made hasty contact with the tree. He turned to glare accusingly at Barnaby, who adopted his most happy-go-lucky expression, tongue lolling casually out of the side of his mouth as he cocked his head to the side. “Barnaby, you’re a very ba-”

Crowley stopped before he could finish his sentence, sighing with resignation and reaching out to ruffle the dog behind the ears. It was useless, not even causing a head on collision with a tree could render Barnaby a bad boy. Crowley knew it, Barnaby knew it, it was entirely possible that even the aforementioned dastardly squirrel knew it. Clapping a palm against the side of his thigh, Crowley whistled for the dogs to follow him and they trotted a pace ahead, the leads clipped to his waist belt sagging as the demon jogged gently to keep up with them.

It hadn’t been easy, the walk so far, despite Crowley’s endless optimism that the dogs would be perfectly behaved angels. Aziraphale had tried to warn him but the demon wouldn’t budge. A lunchtime run with the dogs was just what his cardiovascular system needed, he had insisted. His heart _had_ had a workout, though most of it was down to a spike in adrenaline every time Barnaby spotted a threat up ahead and bolted towards it to defend the pack. The knees in Crowley’s jeans had taken somewhat of a battering and a dark patch on the right knee confirmed that the suit of flesh and blood he currently resided in wasn’t impervious to being dragged over onto the pavement every few minutes.

They were a formidable team, the hounds he took for an afternoon constitutional each day: Barnaby assumed the position of leader, whether or not the other dogs wholly agreed, with huskies Thor and Loki flanking him, thick tails waving happily from the moment Crowley picked them up to the second he returned them, while the Shadwell duo, Jock and Gemini, scampered along on the outer edges of the canine formation, ready to launch into a yap attack at the smallest interference.

After a complex routine of whistling, pleading, begging, and bribery, Crowley coaxed the dogs back onto the path and they made their way towards the exit of the park. Thor and Loki would be dropped off first, before Crowley and Barnaby would bid farewell to Jock and Gemini and then head home themselves. It was a draining circuit and the demon had to fight the urge to curl up on the sofa and sink into a nap every afternoon after returning to the flat, but at least the longer, more frequent walks were doing something to boost Anthony’s bank balance. Swings and roundabouts, Crowley thought, as he swung his arms and gulped in great lungfuls of air to calm his pounding heart. His lungs, he was sure, should absolutely not feel so devoid of oxygen but it was what it was, and what it was was exhausting, particularly when his pelvic region was at the mercy of five canines, one of which was prone to a spontaneous gallop every time he caught sight of another living creature.

As if on cue, Crowley felt the middle lead on the belt go taut, as Barnaby leaped to attention and stood almost motionless, body quivering in anticipation as he stared at a rabbit hopping peacefully around the perimeter of a thick puddle of mud.

“Barnaby, no,” Crowley whispered, silently calling upon Satan’s armies to fill him with the strength of hell to pull rank and assert himself as pack leader.

Much like the last three times he had tried, hell failed to answer the call. Possibly because they were busy planning the end times. Probably because Crowley had never paid enough attention to correctly commit the demonic switchboard number to memory.

***

“Is that you, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, somewhat redundantly, as Crowley slammed through the front door and flung it closed behind him, kicking off his shoes and hurling the dog walking belt into the bin. Beside him, a muddy-pawed Barnaby sat neatly in front of the treat tin and looked up at Crowley expectantly.

“You’ve got to be joking, go to your bed. You were right, angel, stupid idea to trust the outdoors,” Crowley hissed, stalking towards the bathroom and shedding muddy clothes with every step. He pressed the door closed behind him, then tugged it open to lean out and call to Aziraphale. “What are you eating?”

The angel looked over his shoulder, swallowing innocently. “Er, an orange.”

“Damn. I was hoping you were going to say chocolate.” With a sigh, the demon closed the door.

Aziraphale shifted guiltily on the sofa, waiting until he heard the shower begin to run before he balled the orange foil wrapper in his fist and bit the last segment of chocolate orange in half.

***

**Thursday. Pure Fitness, Lambeth.**

_Remember when you dropped a bomb on those Nazis? You weren’t scared then, were you? Brave, that. Even for a demon. You stared down Satan, you faced Gabriel, and you didn’t crumble, did you? So why, pray tell, are you close to trembling as you stand here in the presence of gods?_ Crowley ran his thumb up and down the seam in the pocket of his, well, Anthony's threadbare jogging bottoms, focusing on the way the rough fabric rubbed against the pad of his finger, anything to distract him from the grunts of effort and bellows of victory that rumbled out from the gym every time the reception door swung open. The demon was sitting nervously in the lobby, legs neatly crossed at the ankle as he waited for somebody, presumably a man of chiselled stature, to call his name and declare him ready to be fitness tested.

When Crowley had called the first gym that Google had pointed him in the direction of the previous day, handing over Anthony’s debit card details without a second thought and booking an appointment to _swing by and check out the facilities,_ he had assumed he’d be left to his own devices. He’d assumed wrongly, of course. No, before hell’s most cardiovascularly challenged demon was to be let loose on Lambeth’s twenty four hour Pure Fitness facility, he first had to cross the most intimidating of fitness-based hurdles: the harrowing ordeal of a gym induction.

It didn’t help that he was wearing trainers for the first time in his very long lifetime and it turned out the damned things were far too cumbersome to saunter in. The best he could do was a jaunty sort of stroll that was a little more bouncy than he’d like. As far as Crowley was concerned, demons didn’t bounce. They sauntered. He knew it, his fellow demonic emissaries knew it, everybody knew it. Still, he had to admit the shoes were surprisingly comfortable, which might have explained the bouncy gait he’d slipped into as he strolled through the borough and smiled to himself as the spring sunshine had warmed him from the inside out. That day, he had decided, was going to be a turning point. He could finally do _something_ to leave Anthony’s life better than he’d found it. The dog walker had long lamented his lack of physical fitness, he been promising himself since Crowley had entered his consciousness that he was going to pick up running, start lifting weights, maybe indulge in a spot of step aerobics if the mood took him. Whatever it was, he was going to get fit. And so, Crowley was determined to help his human counterpart in any way he could, and if that meant he had to suffer through the sweaty indignity of joining a soulless gym with too much artificial lighting and not enough private changing rooms, so be it.

Then he’d arrived at the gym to be greeted by a very orange man in a very tight vest who had told him to _hang loose and wait for Brendan_ , and it was in that moment Crowley realised he might have been a little too optimistic about the gym being his calling.

His suspicions were confirmed when Brendan, whose vest was somehow even tighter than his predecessor’s, called him through and led him over to a very intimidating-looking treadmill before asking him to step aboard.

“Nothing major today, mate, all right? We’re just going to get an idea of your fitness levels so I can point you in the right direction. Now, we’ll start off with a jog and chat through some of your health goals.” With that, he pressed an alarming amount of buttons and the machine lurched to life, the belt under Crowley’s feet shifting until the demon was forced into a run just to keep from flying off of the end of it.

Running indoors, Crowley swiftly realised, felt like even more of a pointless endeavour than running outdoors. At least outdoors the scenery changed, and each step brought you closer to a glass of well-deserved wine on the sofa, but in a gym surrounded by strangers? Well, there was nothing at all to look at other than swathes of people who looked far more competent and far less sweaty than he did, and that did not please Crowley very much at all. If he’d had free rein to cause his usual levels of demonic mischief he wouldn’t have hesitated to cast a well-timed cheeky miracle to suddenly set all of the surroundings treadmills into turbo mode, or to render each deadlift platform as unstable as a floor made of jelly. Unfortunately he didn’t have free rein to cause his usual levels of demonic mischief, and so he was forced to behave like a human who was seeking that which society aspired to with near religious reverence: peak physical fitness.

“How’s your breathing, mate? Feeling good? Too fast, too slow?” Brendan asked, eyeing Crowley’s heaving chest as the demon fixed his eyes on the back of a startlingly speedy man running on the treadmill directly ahead of him. He did his best to emulate the man’s posture: chin up, elbows tucked in, feet pounding the treadmill belt in a way that seemed both purposeful and effortless.

In response, Crowley gave Brendan a tight smile, chased with a nod. He might have managed to conjure up a semblance of calm on the outside but inside his mind it was a wildly different story. _How’s my breathing? How do you bloody think my breathing is, Mr Motivator? Look at me, I’m red, I’m puffed, I’m dripping. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times: Humans. Are. Disgusting. Sweat. Factories._

It had been suggested once or twice, unfailingly by Aziraphale, that Crowley could occasionally be prone to fits of drama. That very accusation passed fleetingly into the demon’s head but he promptly cast it asunder, preferring instead to centre his thoughts back on the raging debate taking place in his mind: _what’s going to hurt this fragile corporation more? Continuing this damned run or hurling myself off of the end of the treadmill just to make it stop?_

Thankfully, Brendan took matters into his own larger-than-average hands before Crowley deemed it a necessary evil to fling Anthony’s body to the ground just to make the hideous torture of exercise stop. The man pressed a series of buttons and the treadmill began, mercifully, to slow down until Crowley found himself catching his breath as he relaxed into an ambling walk to nowhere at all. “Great job, excellent stuff. Let’s call it a day for cardio, shall we?”

“Please,” Crowley rasped, one hand cradling his side. A moment later he added an emphatic nod, just in case there was any confusion.

Brendan laughed, clapping him on the shoulder and leading him further into the gym, much to Crowley’s horror and dismay, where everybody in the vicinity appeared to be very large, very grunty, and very strong indeed. “Follow me, big man. Let’s pump some iron.”

***

To add insult to injury, Crowley arrived back at the flat to discover the lift was out of order, which meant a soul-destroying trek up three flights of stairs stood in the way of an evening of laying on the sofa, drinking wine and complaining about existence.

“You’re back, finally. I need some help with the…” Aziraphale’s voice faded away as Crowley limped past him into the bathroom, raising a single hand in greeting before he disappeared for a restorative shower. Pursing his lips in frustration at being dismissed, the angel waited primly until Crowley reappeared ten minutes later, wet-haired and kitchen-bound, then clambered to his feet and followed the demon, finding him leaning against a kitchen worktop and glugging wine directly from the bottle. “Productive workout, was it?”

“Don’t,” Crowley warned, wiping the back of one hand against his mouth and leaving a smear of scarlet against his skin. The wine was good, tasting of the sort of earthy richness that reminded him of the early days on Earth, of evenings spent cautiously watching flickering candlelight painting patterns on Aziraphale’s skin. Forbidden. Tempting. Perfect. He shook his head to return to the present, smacking his palm against the cork to force it back into the bottle. “Sorry, angel. It was… I’m not sure it’s for me, gym life. It’s all very…moistening.”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale smiled as the demon’s lips found their way to his neck, closing his eyes and letting the day’s frustrations ebb away. “It all sounds rather harrowing, if you ask me. Maybe we’re best off leaving all this to the humans.”

“You’re probably right.” Crowley brought one hand to the angel’s waist, pulling him closer and pressing a kiss to his jaw, his cheek, and then his lips. “I’m going to give it one last go tomorrow and if it’s as much of a disaster as it was today, well, maybe this body just isn’t destined for physical greatness.”

“I don’t know about that.” The angel took a step back, gesturing up and down the length of Crowley’s body as if to illustrate his point. “It looks pretty great to me.”

Crowley laughed, taking the angel’s hand and leading him through the flat, pausing en route to kiss Barnaby on the snout and bid him goodnight. Safely ensconced in the bedroom, the demon collapsed into bed and tugged Aziraphale down on top of him. “You were saying.”

“Ah, yes, what _was_ I saying? Something about how perfect every last inch of you…” Aziraphale trailed off mid-seduction, stifling a yawn with the back of one hand and smiling sheepishly. “Heavens, I’m so sorry, my dear. I’m just so…”

“Tired?” Crowley asked, masking a yawn of his own. It had become a worrisome development as their lives and work grew busier by the day, how they would pour themselves into bed earlier and earlier each night, plans for salacious seductions nipped in the bud by the overwhelming need for sleep. “No wonder we haven’t thought of a plan to save the world yet, we can’t even stay awake past half ten.”

“We just need to get on top of things,” Aziraphale reasoned, rolling off of the one thing he had been on top of, and snuggling against Crowley’s chest as the demon slid a hand up into his hair. “Tick some of these chores off the list, that’s all, and then we’ll figure it out.”

“Of course we will. We always figure it out in the end. Goodnight, angel.” Crowley reached out to click the light off and the two of them, angel and demon, closed their eyes and waited for sleep to take them.

“Sweet dreams, Crowley.”

_Bzzzt. Bzzzt._

Five minutes later, a deep vibration shocked them both awake, Aziraphale left blinking in the darkness as Crowley scrabbled for his phone and swore under his breath. A moment later, it fell silent.

“What was that?” The angel’s voice was sleepy, words blurring together into a singular haze.

“Water alarm,” came Crowley’s reply, followed by five deep swallows as he drained the glass on his bedside table.

Next to him, Aziraphale sighed. Loudly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday, everyone! How are you all this fine hump day? I really hope you enjoyed part two of Crowley's quest to get fit and I'll be back next Wednesday (17th) with the next chapter. Next week will actually be exactly a year since I first started posting Ineffably Yours, so it's a bit of a milestone :D.
> 
> I hope you're all well and staying safe, let me know what you've been up to! <3


	26. The Bitter End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just think, we’ll pay our dues and slog through this, then we can head to the pub for a nice, cool-” Crowley stopped mid-sentence as he turned and caught the expression on Aziraphale’s face.

**May. Pure Fitness, Lambeth.**

“I’m not at all sure about this, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, for perhaps the thirteenth time that hour, as the demon scanned his membership card against the double doors and gave the angel a smile that was probably supposed to be motivating.

“Teamwork, angel,” Crowley said, sliding dark glasses up into his hair and gesturing for Aziraphale to take his first step over the threshold. “What was it I said before, we only work when we’re together? Wise words, those.”

“And what was it I said, that we barely work, even then?” Aziraphale asked, tugging unhappily at the elasticated waist of the grey jogging bottoms he’d procured after a lengthy battle in the Selfridges changing rooms that very morning. The waistband felt restrictive, clinging to his skin in a number of ways he was very much not au fait with. Roomy trousers held up with a belt that was worth its weight in gold, that was the angel’s comfort zone: clothes that were comfortable, familiar, and entirely unthreatening in every way. Joggers, a _vest_ (of all things), and, heaven forbid, trainers? A very unwelcome step out of Aziraphale’s circle of trust.

When the angel had offered to accompany Crowley to the gym in the ultimate act of solidarity, he had regretted the words as soon as the demon excitedly accepted his offer. Apparently the entire endeavour would be far more appealing if they could tackle it together, according to Crowley. Aziraphale had felt something sink deep in the pit of his stomach when he realised he hadn’t just made a shallow promise that would never come to pass, the harrowing truth was that in mere hours he, Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate who was, all things considered, Soft with a capital S, would be attempting to pass himself off as not just human, but a human who was interested in the harrowing ordeal of exercise.

As the two otherworldly entities entered the gym, one slouching and one nervously tiptoeing, Aziraphale found his senses assaulted with such intensity it was as if he was back in heaven watching the cringeworthy laser display that had preceded Gabriel’s announcement of the Rapture 2020. Bright lights bloomed overhead, as if casting spotlights on every gym-goer pounding the treadmills in front of them, while soulless upbeat music blasted from the speakers and filled the room with an echoing din of beats and lyrics that would be forgotten before the line was even finished. The smell of disinfectant and sweat hung in the damp air and Aziraphale turned to Crowley, shaking his head. He wasn’t sure where the words came from, or why the idea of spending an hour exercising by the demon’s side felt like such a monumental mountain he wasn’t sure he could scale, but when he spoke his voice was thin with panic. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Just think, we’ll pay our dues and slog through this, then we can head to the pub for a nice, cool-” Crowley stopped mid-sentence as he turned and caught the expression on Aziraphale’s face, noticed the way the angel’s shoulders were rounded as he hunched over, shrinking himself. He had seen it before, a number of times, in fact, and had always felt a pang of sadness at the way his soulmate would bow his head to make himself smaller. Anything to be less of a target. “Angel, what’s wrong?”

_I don’t know,_ Aziraphale wanted to say, _I don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t know why I want to turn and run out of this door, I don’t know why I feel like such a fool._ But the words didn’t come. Instead, he looked around the gym at iron barbells, machines he couldn’t even begin to understand the function of, mirrored walls that reflected his own worried face back at him. He looked at the other gym-goers, confident and bright with thick ponytails and curved biceps, slicked with sweat. He looked at their faces, smiling and successful, fitter than him, bigger than him, impressive, better, more than he was.

Would they laugh at him, he wondered, if they turned to see him fail, to see his weakness? They were a pack of bodies, of aspirational correctness that he could never satisfy. It wasn’t about the gym, he recognised that, that place was just a springboard back to the past. It wasn’t about the gym-goers either, who were too focused on their own workouts to pay him any mind at all. Physically he stood on the stiff grey carpet of Lambeth’s Pure Fitness but in his head, in his heart, Aziraphale was moving silently through the corridors of heaven, cowed and meek, as invisible as any angel could ever hope to be. In that moment he might have believed he’d been pulled back there, back to Gabriel’s unending scrutiny, if it wasn’t for Crowley’s presence by his side. _He’s here, he’s with you, you’re safe. You’re not in heaven, you’re free. You escaped, don’t forget that._

There was a time, Aziraphale realised with a jolt, when he had felt that exact creep of discomfort every hour of the day and every minute of the night, as if he was only ever one misstep away from being mocked, from being pointed out as _wrong_ , as something that didn’t belong, as somebody who was an outsider to his very core. It was almost a luxury, in a strange, painful sort of way, that he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt that same sense of unease. Had it been the last time he had visited heaven before Gabriel had handed his management back to Raphael, back during that agonising year that had stretched on and on while he and Crowley had kept their distance from each other, before they had given in and changed the course of everything?

It hadn’t left him, that fear of appearing as something _other_. It had just retreated into the shadows to watch from a distance, to wait patiently until the next moment he was caught off guard and took a step out of his carefully constructed comfort zone. What was it Crowley had said about the darkness that had stalked him relentlessly during those years spent in the pits of hell, that once it has you it never truly lets you go, that’s it always there in the distance, watching? Perhaps heaven and hell would share the same sort of darkness if they were stripped back to their base elements. Perhaps the same fear underpinned the hallowed halls of heaven and the deepest pits of hell. Fear. Guilt. Shame. Were they so different in the end?

_It will still be there,_ the angel realised, as he reached for Crowley’s hand, _whether I look back over my shoulder or refuse to do anything other than stare straight ahead._ That was the moment Aziraphale knew why he felt such a pull to the present, to the safe haven he had created from memories and love and his deepest desire to _belong_. That was why he wouldn’t look back, couldn’t look back at the old world, at Earth, at heaven, at all of the places that had told him he was wrong, that he didn’t fit, that he needed to be more of this or less of that or anything other than who he was. Crowley wanted so desperately to go back, one last time, to the place where he could rediscover who he had been before he lost it all, but for Aziraphale that would mean stepping back into his old life of fear and judgement, of revisiting those endless years spent ensuring he remained harmless and compliant, anything to avoid attracting Gabriel’s attention. He knew that, he understood it, but he would take that step back because there was no fear or guilt or shame that meant he would leave Crowley to face heaven without him.

_I won’t let him go back there alone. When we stand against heaven, we stand together._ Aziraphale steeled himself, wrapping his fingers tightly around Crowley’s as he stared back into the demon’s golden eyes, saw the way his eyebrows were downturned with worry. Whatever it meant, revisiting his old life, standing in Gabriel’s shadow one last time, he would endure it tenfold if it would bring the demon closure, or peace, or anything at all that might strip away the imprint of guilt hell had left on his soul.

“I’ll do it,” the angel said, despising the way his voice came out as a reedy whisper, barely audible above the gym’s pounding music.

“What?” Crowley asked, taking a step closer to Aziraphale as he slowly realised the conversation might have moved on from whether or not either of them had the wherewithal to struggle through a workout in the name of keeping their borrowed corporations in good working order. “What did you say?”

Aziraphale had said the words before, quite a few times, in fact, but that moment was the first time his heart was fully behind the pledge. Until then it had been an abstract agreement, something that was _one day, when time is running out._ It had felt hypothetical, as if the end of the world wasn’t _really_ coming any time soon, and so Aziraphale hadn’t paid it too much mind. Their evenings of half-hearted planning had become a hobby, a way to pass the time as they drank wine and ate cheese and batted ideas back and forth about how an incompetent angel and demon duo might save the new world from heaven’s clutches, if ever such an occasion arose. Aziraphale had, as he grudgingly accepted he was prone to doing, adopted an ostrich-like stance towards the impending end of the world, as if the entire thing might just get bored and move on if he refused to allow it to occupy any real space in his brain. But heaven didn’t get bored and move on. Aziraphale knew that, and every day that he refused to look back over his shoulder was another day closer to the moment when his choice about whether or not to return to heaven to finish what they had started would be taken away.

“I’ll do it,” he said again, louder that time, and there was freedom there. It was a quieter sort of freedom than the roaring liberation he had felt on the day when he and Luci had shattered clay rounds until the sun went down and their arms were weighty with expended effort, but freedom was freedom as far as Aziraphale was concerned, and over the millennia it had become his most precious commodity. He felt the beginnings of a smile round the corners of his mouth, and suddenly the room he stood in was just a gym, and the people around him were just people. “We’ll go back. We’ll go back together. I’ll do it, Crowley.”

“Angel.” Crowley exhaled the pet name as he leaned down to press his lips against Aziraphale’s, feeling a rush of love so potent it could only be construed with a kiss. He couldn’t fathom what about standing in the entrance of a nondescript gym in South London had led to the angel’s revelation. No matter. The only thing that did matter was that Aziraphale, of his own volition, had come to understand that the only way forward was back, and that the only way they would ever truly escape heaven’s grip would be to watch it fall with their own eyes. To tear it down, if that’s what it took. “When you’re ready, not before. When you’re ready we’ll go back and finish this.”

A heartbeat passed. Then another. Then the angel spoke.

“If it’s quite all right I might sit this one out.” He smiled weakly, nodded back to the row of hard, upright chairs in the lobby. “Rather a lot to think about.”

There was, Crowley had to concede, rather a lot to think about indeed. He slung an arm around the angel but no sooner had his fingers made contact with the warm strip of exposed skin at Aziraphale’s waist than the ground lurched beneath them. Crowley staggered forward a pace, his palm slapping against the wall as he held himself upright. Next to him, Aziraphale tumbled to his knees, one arm grasping weakly at Crowley’s thigh to break his fall. Above them, the artificial lights flickered until the spotlights flashed on and off like sirens, and suddenly the speakers were vomiting out the fizzing screech of white noise as the cheery music went dead. There was the feeling of darkness, of the wet blackness of despair sucking at the corners of the world, the slow draining of colour from the sky as the world outside shifted to greyscale.

And then it passed.

The lights glared as brightly as they always had, the tinny shriek of static gave way to the motivational track that had been blasting a moment before, and the gym-goers continued on with their relentless striding and squatting and stretching as if the world hadn’t momentarily slipped into dismay around them.

Crowley pulled the angel to his feet, wrapping an arm tightly around his shoulders to hold him close. Silently, they hurried away hand in hand, neither daring to utter a word until they bolted the door behind them in the safety of the flat, by which time they both quietly agreed that perhaps they shouldn’t return to the gym, which was overpriced and overrated anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! How are you doing? I hope you've had a peaceful week, wherever you are in the world, and that you've been lucky enough to have some sunshine. It's all a bit stormy here but hey ho, we had some impressive thunder last night which was a bit exciting. 
> 
> ...It's lockdown. Leave me alone. I have to take excitement where I can get it 😂.
> 
> Speaking of excitement, today actually marks exactly a year since I posted chapter one of Ineffably Yours! What a year, eh? When I pressed publish on chapter one I just wanted to share a little idea I had for an epilogue for GO and thought it would just be a short few chapters about what happened the night Armageddon failed. Ha. It's been such an incredible, transformational year and such a massive part of it is down to the amazing support I've had from you all. I've made so many wonderful friendships and I will never be able to thank you all enough for reading and sharing your thoughts and making me laugh and cry in equal measure. It really means the world to me that you're enjoying this story and I really hope you enjoy what's to come.
> 
> Thank you, all of you, for always being so kind. Lots of love <3
> 
> P.S. I'll be back next Wednesday with chapter twenty seven and while it's no means a requirement and there won't be any spoilers, if you have the time and inclination I would recommend being up to date with the Raphael-focused side story which you can find here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20401738/chapters/48391339


	27. From the Other Side

**Heaven.**

The archangel Raphael rolled their shoulder blades back into position as their wings folded inward, opening their eyes as their feet touched solid ground. They leaned back against the wall of the deserted corridor and sighed, eyes cast up towards the yawning arc of sky above the heavens.

“I’m sorry.” Their lips formed the words but no sound echoed through heaven’s halls. After all, what shadows might lurk in the darkness just beyond sight? It was heaven, not paradise. “Not tonight, my love.”

Raphael breathed a soft sigh of resignation to another night spent walking the skies in search of a flicker of that golden light. A hint. A sign. A hope. Anything. It had been…how many years had it been? The archangel had lost count after the first stretch of lonely millennia. Untold trips into the stars, untold nights returning to the cold solitude of their office, untold depths of hope that would never stop burning. There must still be another corner that lay undiscovered, they told themselves. The answer must lay up above. The alternative, that Lucifer’s final resting place lay beneath the heavens, was a thought the archangel would not, could not, entertain.

They turned to go, walking humbly down the corridor, head bowed, leaving nothing but the trail of fading stardust in their wake.

Back inside their office, with its high ceilings and expanse of windows, what remained of the Earth sleeping quietly below, Raphael pushed against door until there came the reassuring click of privacy. They crossed the room to stand before the painting, Lucifer’s final gift to them, that great symphony of chaotic lines and brushstrokes, the crash of waves against the steady shore, moonlight pulling out the highlights of the cliff’s edge. Beautiful. Dangerous. Lucifer, incarnate. Ignoring the tight sting in the back of their throat, the archangel pressed their lips against the corner of the canvas and felt the ebb and flow of the paint, every curve and dip that Lucifer had left there for them, a treasure hunt of hidden details that it would take infinite lifetimes to uncover. An eternal gift, as hopeful as it was cruel.

As their forehead came to rest against the painting, Raphael closed their eyes and breathed in until they were sure something of Lucifer’s scent hung in the air, something that was at once comforting and haunting. Imagination, they weren’t foolish enough to believe it was anything else, but if there was anything left of Lucifer in the art the archangel felt it tear itself free until it was standing behind them in the empty office.

There was the feeling of a warm weight against their back, the tender drape of a lover’s arms around their waist until Lucifer might have been there clutching their chest, holding them close until they could feel the rise and fall of the only heart they had ever surrendered themselves to. Raphael brought their hands to their own chest, let their mind soar free until they could all but feel Lucifer’s hands beneath their skin. Hands that had painted The First Night on Earth; hands that had shepherded the stars through the sky and tugged the sun from her bed each morning; hands that had travelled the archangel’s face, fingertips brushing lightly against their lips and nose and forehead until they knew them as surely as their own features.

 _I still search for you, my Morningstar._ In the loneliness of their private corner of heaven, still the archangel remained silent, speaking the words only in their mind but with as much conviction and fragility as if they were murmuring them against Lucifer’s skin. _In the night. In the infinite skies. In the echoes of stars long-since extinguished: the ones that burn too bright for this universe to contain. I will never stop, my love, not until I hold your hand in mine and take you home._

Raphael pressed their hands tighter to their chest, felt only their own heart thrum against their palm. The beat, beat, beat a superfluous reminder of their own mortality, because even archangels are transient, in their own relative way. _What would you say to me if you could guide me, if you could show me the way? I don’t know how to do this without you, Lucifer. I need you. I need your light, your belief in goodness, in something better than this. I’m so tired, my love._

They could feel a soft curtain of golden hair sweep against their cheek, hear gently teasing laughter in the air, the reassuring nuzzle of a forehead pressed to their neck. _I’m here, my love._ Then came the imagined sound of Lucifer’s voice, so close it was almost real. _Whatever comes, wherever this path leads you, I would be so proud to stand by your side. I loved you in the darkness and I’ll love you all the way to the light._

In the darkness, Raphael felt for the spaces between Lucifer’s fingers, and the archangel smiled. But Lucifer wasn’t in the room with them that night in the final moments before heaven and hell and the concept of good and evil and neutrality were changed forever. The Morningstar was gone. Somewhere, or perhaps nowhere at all. It was just a dream, and Raphael was just a grieving lover whose quiet hope could never be destroyed.

***

The halls of heaven were alive that night, and a surging hum of energy rose to meet Raphael as the archangel stood under one of the curved arches of marble and took in the sight that lay before their eyes.

Rows of angels stretched back through the halls until the natural curve of the heavens dipped them out of sight, each row punctuated with an archangel who stood tall as a leader, bright wings held aloft and spears of gold pointing down to the Earth. Infinite suits of golden, glistening armour stared back at Raphael, infinite angels regimented and poised, bows and swords and shields ready to spill blood in the name of the Almighty. The ranks that stood before the archangel were no longer beings of heaven, Raphael understood, as panic pumped in their chest: they were Gabriel’s army.

Eerie silence hung mist-like in the air, as if every angel was waiting for a single command before they sprung into action. Raphael didn’t dare move, stood frozen under the arches as their eyes scanned the impossible numbers that stood facing them. The angels stood motionless but ready; chins tilted up, hair pulled up and away from their faces, arms and chests braced with armour to protect them from the hellish weapons they knew awaited them at the ends of the Earth. Ten thousand faces stared into the middle distance. Cold, hard, unreadable.

And then came Michael striding up between two rows, boots clicking against the polished marble as they span in a neat half-circle and faced the angelic army, arms spread wide as a smile wound its way across their face.

“Brave warriors, I stand here today indebted to you, humbled by your loyalty.” Michael began to speak, smiling generously as their eyes roamed from one side of the hall to the other, taking in the victorious number of angels that stood before them. A passionate army as disciplined as they were confident in their immunity by way of piety. The Almighty would never let hell triumph, would She? She was all-seeing and all-knowing, had already witnessed the end of their Earth, would surely know that Her children would return to Her, to the stars, after their final show of righteous loyalty. It had been Gabriel’s promise after all, first uttered eons ago when they had begun training for the last months, weeks, days of Earth, for the final battle, the war that would stamp out evil’s presence for good. And then? Paradise. Peace. Eternity by Her side.

“The time has come for us to make our next move against Satan’s army, those who would cast evil as far as their shadows reach, who would spread corruption throughout the Almighty’s Earth, who would destroy everything we have built and protected in Her name. We are strong, we are powerful, and we are ready. It is a great thing you are doing, my family, a noble thing. What better way to honour the Almighty by standing to fight in Her name? You will be rewarded, all of you, in the days that come after. No sacrifice will go unnoticed, no heroism unrecognised. I am so proud of you, all of you, as is Lord Gabriel. He will join our charge when it is time to depart and we will follow him gladly, will we not?”

The hall erupted into cries of affirmation, the sound of thousands of shields and spears and bow-tips pummelling against the ground in such perfect sync the noise was amplified into a vibrating curtain of sound that near enough knocked Raphael back a pace. The archangel shrank back away from the din, away from the impossible number of glazed-eyed soldiers who would march behind Gabriel all the way to their own demise, all in the name of unrequited loyalty. Would they find their eternal home in the skies above the heavens, settling amongst the stars to watch the evolution of the universe their Almighty would sculpt until the end of time? Raphael didn’t know. And that was the truth Gabriel had neglected to mention. Nobody knew what lay beyond heaven or beneath hell. All the archangel believed with confidence is that there lay something, of course, that there was always something beyond the borders of discovery.

A chill settled over Raphael’s shoulders, rinsing them from the top down until a long shiver ran through their body. It was an overwhelming sense of unease, of knowing that something crucial had been forgotten, the impending dread of something world-shifting and outside of their control about to take place. And then Gabriel appeared, a hunched figure stalking down the corridor towards them, shaking step after shaking stem bringing him closer. The pinpricks of disquiet grew louder until they were screaming as surely in Raphael’s ears as the sound of the angelic soldiers in heaven’s cavernous hall. Gabriel drew up alongside them, speaking from underneath the heavy hood of their white cloak, sewn with glittering golden thread as beautiful as it was hollow.

“A fine night, archangel.”

Raphael nodded, swallowing tightly as they straightened up, if only because standing taller than Gabriel meant it was easier to avoid his wet, desperate eyes. Many moons had passed since the archangel’s piercing violet gaze had locked onto a target, unwavering and sure. They were nothing but puddles of insipid lilac now, as if all their colour had bled out into Gabriel’s skin, leaving his cheeks purple-tinged and sickly, like something dying from the inside out.

“I said: a fine night, archangel.” Gabriel spoke again, and that time he shook his head until the hood fell back against his shoulders and his face was visible, all shadowed hollows and weeping edges. Raphael noticed a black circle by the archangel’s right ear, the ashen darkness of a scorch mark, easily visible through the lank tendrils of hair that fell over the archangel’s face, clumps that waved like seaweed in the water as Gabriel shook his head again.

“A fine night.” Raphael bit out the words, glancing back at the archway that led back to the hall where Gabriel’s army stood ready and waiting for their leader to grace them with his presence, to praise them and lie to them until their souls were soothed with the knowledge that they were Her crusaders, divine until the end. After a moment of hesitation, Raphael lightened their voice and did the riskiest thing they had done in months: they questioned the archangel Gabriel. “Are we to depart so soon, Gabriel?”

“We?” Gabriel laughed, the sound coming out as a high-pitched keening that saw Raphael take a step back in revulsion. “I’m afraid you will not travel with us tonight, Raphael the Meek. I thought perhaps you might want to stay behind, to enjoy the peace and quiet for a while. After all, it will be so very loud at the end. Fear always causes a deafening echo, doesn’t it? Deafening enough to be heard by our mutual friends, perhaps. They never could resist the glory of martyrdom.”

“I am to be there,” Raphael said plainly, a statement more than anything else. They spoke carefully, ignoring the intent to aggravate them, leaving no trailing space for Gabriel to interpret. “I trust I don’t need to remind you of Her instructions. A loyal soldier such as yourself should…”

“I am _not_ a foot solider,” Gabriel hissed, stepping closer to Raphael until it was impossible for them not to inhale the warm decay that clung to his breath. “We will send for you, archangel, at the end. Until then, there is plenty of _important_ work for you to amuse yourself with here. So much paperwork left to file. Redundant, really, but isn’t that fitting? Lord of the Servitors, what an apt legacy for you, eh, Raphael?”

Gabriel didn’t wait for their reply, didn’t care to hear whether or not Raphael was content to wander heaven’s empty corridors and wait until the very end, when they would be summoned to look upon everything Gabriel’s army had done to the world they had created. He staggered a pace to the left, then recovered with a snort of annoyance and walked slowly towards the end of the corridor, where ten thousand acolytes were waiting for him.

There was no goodbye, nothing to commemorate the millennia the two archangels had spent together in heaven, labouring side by side to keep Her world turning in harmony. There had been friction, yes, and cruelty and disdain and rebellion hidden and pushed down so deep it was held as quietly as a single flame in the dark. Despite that, despite everything, Raphael turned to watch Gabriel leave, reprimanded themselves for the flicker of hope they felt as the archangel stopped walking and paused for a moment, as if he might turn back for a final goodbye, one final show of respect for the angel who She had declared his partner to bring Her vision to life.

Understanding that there would be no goodbye, no silent nod to stand in as a truce, Raphael waited until Gabriel’s voice echoed out around the hall and the glint of infinite heavenly weapons being held aloft in respect bounced off of the ceiling and shone down the empty corridor. Then they turned to go, to discover who else had been declared redundant, who heaven had left behind one last time.

***

“So they’re really leaving,” Remi murmured, voice laced with confusion as if he had never thought that moment would truly come, as if the scope of it was too huge for reality, that it could only ever be the stuff of legend.

“So it would seem.” Raphael peered down through a gap in the ebony clouds to watch the way heaven’s army moved, ant-like, in preparation to depart for that great final journey down to Earth. How many of them would return, the archangel wondered? How many would ascend when the war was won, or when the war was over, at least? How many would be lost to the battle, left to take their final breaths amongst the humans, dying as surely and uneventfully as those they were sworn to protect?

The rows of angels filed out of the great cavernous hall in the same neat rows, disappearing line by line until the room was half empty, then a quarter empty, and then Raphael looked away. They turned their attention to the swirling clouds that blanketed the sky below them, save for rare pockets of emptiness that had allowed the archangel and angel to watch the scene from above. Safe, sound, out of sight. It felt fitting to live on the periphery for a few weeks longer.

Below them, a deep rumble of thunder rolled throatily out of a steel grey cloud, accompanied by a crack of white lightning a heartbeat later. If Gabriel could have controlled the weather Raphael would have tutted at his penchant for drama, but weather systems had never fallen under Gabriel’s jurisdiction and if Raphael was honest they could no longer remember the name of the short, white-haired angel who was responsible for bringing storms and snow and ice rain into being. Nuriel? Nathaniel? No. The name was gone. Perhaps they had spent too many years with their head down, wilfully blind to Gabriel’s heaven, adopting ignorance as a means of survival.

“Come on.” Remi slid a hand through the crook in Raphael’s arm, the motion catching the archangel off-guard as they jumped back a fraction. The angel rolled his eyes good-naturedly and tugged them forward, closer to a cluster of silver stars that cast light onto a particularly volatile looking storm cloud. “Us staring at them all night isn’t going to stop them leaving, is it? Let’s talk about something that might put a smile on your face, heaven knows it’s a rare enough sight. Tell me about Earth. Your Earth.”

Despite their gloomy mood at the news that the end was drawing ever nearer, Raphael set free a small smile. It was nothing more than a brief quirk of their lips but Remi caught it all the same, smiling wide in turn and waiting for Raphael to speak. After a moment, the archangel shared the most vivid memories they had of the sprawling hunk of space rock they had crafted so lovingly.

“It’s green.” A laugh then, fading away as quickly as it arrived. “Trees as high as heaven’s halls, endless plains of soft green grass so wide you could walk for days and never reach the other side of them, flowers so bright and beautiful they look impossible, as if they could only exist inside your imagination. The forests, Remi, those are our finest legacy. If you look up you’ll find a canopy of leaves, a second sky high above you, and the ground is soft with grass and moss and fallen leaves. Whatever answers you seek, whatever moments of clarity you need, you’ll find them in the forests. The last gift of one of the greatest minds I’ve ever had the pleasure to walk beside.”

Remi looked up at the archangel, watched as they spoke of the angel who had covered the Almighty’s world with greenery and beauty and the first life. To watch Raphael speak of him, that fallen angel, was to see the archangel come alive. “I wish I could have known him.”

“Yes. I think the two of you would have hit it off rather nicely. He would have led you into plenty of trouble, no doubt.” Raphael kept their eyes trained on the stars as they walked on, swallowing tightly as they ran their words back. They shook their head a little, sighing. “It’s for the best, or I may have ended up walking here alone tonight.”

“You flatter me, Raphael. I was never brave enough to follow them, was I? One of the watchers from the wings, too scared to raise my hand when the time came.”

“Remi.” Raphael stopped, turning to face the young angel and cupping his face in both hands. “You are one of the bravest angels I’ve ever known. What you’ve done, what you’re going to do… Never for a moment let yourself believe that you aren’t indescribably brave.”

How long had it been since he had been touched, Remi wondered? Had anybody before Raphael ever held his face in their hands, looked into his eyes, and told him he was more than he believed he could be? The angel held the archangel’s gaze for a moment, and then looked away, if only because there was a sadness in Raphael’s eyes that haunted him. He had come to know that look too well in the stretch of time that had passed since the day he had stood in the crowd and watched Gabriel cast out the fallen. The shame of his silence had stalked him until the day he had decided to seek allegiance in the one corner of heaven where he believed goodness still pulsed as steady as a heartbeat. In that corner he had found the goodness he had believed in, and kindness and encouragement, the sort of parental protection he had thought it impossible to find in Gabriel’s heaven. Humour too, on occasion, but melancholy more often than that.

“Tell me more about the Earth,” Remi said finally. Raphael’s tales of Earth had become a sort of lullaby to him over the years, the sort of stories he could disappear into while he waited, and waited, and waited, for the moment to arrive.

“I’m afraid there is nothing left to tell. No, I think you’ve quite wrung out every drop of my Earthly knowledge.” Raphael didn’t quite reach out to ruffle the angel’s dark hair but the thought was there all the same.

“There must be something.” The angel winced as his voice came out in a childlike whine. He hated those moments where his years betrayed him, as he hung in the centuries between youth and responsibility. “Nobody can know more than you do, you created it. Who else in heaven walked its paths more than you?”

“It was a different Earth back then.” Raphael smiled sadly. What would they find, they wondered, when they set foot back on that world? Would they find the eden they had left behind, or would they find something else? They had followed reports, of course, had watched Aziraphale from afar and snatched glimpses as they could. There had been changes, yes, and they had expected that. Humanity had been put there to grow, to evolve, to forge their path on that rock that hurtled on its own journey through the sky. Had they kept it safe, though? Had humanity cared for it and loved it as they had when they created it? They hoped so. It would be an honour, Raphael thought, to see the Earth in all its glory instead of watching it from above.

“At least I’ll get to see it for myself soon enough,” Remi said, craning his neck to peer through the clouds and stare beyond heaven, all the way down to the pale blue dot that lay below them. “I can’t wait to walk among humans, see what all the fuss is about. Earth. Find out why it’s the centre of everything, why they chose it as the final battleground. Why not here in the stars? Think of the drama.”

For the first time in a long while, Raphael laughed. Properly. A booming sound that echoed through the stars and boomeranged back around to them a moment later as loud as a clap of thunder. It caught Raphael off-guard and they beamed, momentarily lost to the magic of their own happiness. “Whoever said I couldn’t be the archangel of storms, eh?”

“It might help us out if you were, strike Gabriel down with holy lightning a couple of times for good measure.” When the angel looked back up a moment later, he found Raphael watching him with a curious look on their face. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just, for a moment you sounded just like him.”

“Do you think he’ll like me?” Remi asked eagerly, that time ignoring the impulsive excitement in his voice. He had heard so many stories of the two celestial rebels who had disappeared into the ether, who had been the source of so much silent dissent, that he couldn’t help but daydream about the day he might stand in their presence, the day he might finally be able to thank them for the legacy they had left behind. “Do you think they both will? Are you sure, Raphael…you know, that they are what you think they are?”

In the glowing magnitude of the night sky, Raphael nodded. “They are everything I always knew they were, little one.”

They fell silent then, the archangel and the angel who had an impossible path ahead of them. They watched the final trail of Gabriel’s army march out through heaven’s gates, almost obscured by the thunderous rain and flashes of lightning from the skies around them. The final soldier paused mid-march, turning to slowly push the towering golden gates shut, and then hurried to rejoin the ranks. There were two figures standing at the head of the regimented blocks, one gesticulating wildly, passionately, as the other looked on, leaning against something tall and heavy that might have been a war axe.

“So soon,” Raphael breathed, as the first cluster of angels disappeared into nothingness. How much time would pass for them, they wondered, as they transitioned from standing before heaven’s gates to reaching the Earth? Would it take a heartbeat to descend, or the blink of an eye, or a hour, or a week? Gabriel would have something more elaborate planned than the standard methods, Raphael assumed. “I thought we had more time.”

“Will they die?” Remi asked suddenly, with all the wide-eyed disbelief of an angel who had never suffered loss, as he watched the crowd of angels below them grow smaller and smaller.

Raphael was struck by the instinct to reach for him, to pull him close in a hug, to lie and swear that no, nobody would die, that they would all make it back to the Almighty, safe and proud of what they had done with their last weeks. How many of his friends were amongst the ranks? Was there one, a special one, who he had begged to stay, who had turned and left to follow Gabriel, with all of his charm and promises?

Then came an almighty peal of thunder and a slash of lightning that tore through heaven’s halls, ripping a crevice in the empty marble hallways. A pillar crashed to the ground, splitting clean in two, and a heavy mist of dust was flung up, hanging in the air before it settled down as easily as a blanket draped across a sleeping child. Watching from above in horror, Remi turned to look at the archangel who stared down, their jaw set and eyes sadly downturned.

“Is it time, archangel?” Remi asked finally, uneasily, silver eyes darting towards a faraway corner of heaven that lay in darkness, shadowed by a passing cloud. There was a flicker of something that radiated up into the skies, as if things that had long-since fallen dormant were finally waking up. “Is it time to speak with them?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI PALS! Excuse my all-caps excitement but we're on the cusp of a heatwave here in the UK and I'm minutes away from heading out for a walk in the sunshine...maybe with a cheeky fruit pastille lolly, who knows, I might treat myself.
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed this one, it's been one of my favourites to write from Part III. A bit of a departure from the norm as no Aziraphale and Crowley, but things are afoot...!
> 
> I'm actually taking a little break next week to start working on the next chunk of Part III so I'll be back on July 8th with the next chapter, where we'll return to solid ground and check in with our celestial boys again...who are focusing on more important things than the end of the world, namely the horror that is the eve of Crowley's first ever gig :D.
> 
> I hope you're all well, lots of love <3
> 
> P.S. Thank you for all the support and well wishes on last week's one year anniversary, you lovely lot!


	28. The Road We Chose to Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t waste your time trying to understand the motivation of wankers, angel.”

**May. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

“Here you go, angel.” Crowley pressed a steaming mug of marshmallow-topped hot chocolate into Aziraphale’s waiting hands, bending down to plant a kiss against his temple. He lingered for a moment, breathed in the vanilla scent of the shampoo the angel had taken to using, and then settled down next to him on the sofa.

Aziraphale smiled, cupping the mug in one hand as his other snaked across to stroke the top of Crowley’s thigh, tracing lazy patterns with his thumb as he spelled out a series of words that popped into his head, seemingly at random. _Heaven. Hell_. _Love. Time._ The angel pursed his lips and let a heavy sigh escape through his nose. Not so random, as it turned out.

Heaven had stubbornly insisted on infiltrating his thoughts for most of his sleeping _and_ waking hours in the days that had passed since that strange blip in the gym when it had seemed as if the entire world had blinked for a moment, as if it had disconnected and restarted like his phone was prone to doing at exceedingly inconvenient moments. It had lasted for ten seconds, if that, but while the humans around them had continued running and cycling and lifting weights as if it was just an ordinary afternoon in London, for a stowaway angel and demon it was a far more sinister occurrence.

Aziraphale had been on high alert the night it had happened, peeking out through the blinds as if Gabriel himself might be lurking outside the living room window, floating in mid-air like a pale-faced vampire scratching at the glass to worm his way inside. Days had gone by and Gabriel had yet to make an appearance but, even so, Aziraphale’s mounting dread continued to build, exacerbated by a string of strange events that had made their way into the headlines.

**_Surrey Hit By Minor Earthquake!_ **

**_It’s Raining Cats and Frogs in Newcastle!_ **

**_Thunderbolt and Lightning, Very Very Frightening - Your Snaps of 2021’s Great Storm!_ **

Each morning the angel would find himself combing the newspaper for the latest stories, however small and seemingly insignificant, that might herald the End of Days. Well, the next End of Days, at least. There had been rather a few doomsday situations in the last few years but Aziraphale did not consider himself foolish enough to believe this coming event was anything other than cataclysmic. The Big One. The Really Big One. The Biggest of Big Ones, one might say.

The storm that had raged over London four days previously was the development he had found most concerning, given heaven’s penchant for marking important events with some sort of significant weather pattern. First had come the flood, then the rainbow, and then a veritable cornucopia of weather-related spectacles over the past six thousand years. The Great Storm of 2021 wasn’t likely to be one for the history books (if, of course, his new world existed for long enough for history books to be written in the first place), and if Aziraphale was honest the whole thing had been exaggerated somewhat by the newspapers. Even so, there had been a particularly grizzly clap of thunder that had seen the angel jump so dramatically that Crowley had reached out a hand to steady him.

“Are you all right?” the demon had asked, concern softening his brow as he watched Aziraphale fiddle with a stray thread peeking out from the hem of his waistcoat. When the angel’s consequential dithering confirmed that no, he definitely was not all right, Crowley had shifted closer and fixed him with a worried look. “You think it’s all connected, don’t you? The earthquake, the storm… Do you think it’s-”

“Of course it is.” Aziraphale had nodded passionately, lips pale as he smiled humourlessly. “It’s starting to bleed through, what’s happening on Earth. Heaven must be…I don’t know, they must be up to something. It’s got all of Gabriel’s usual nuance, hasn’t it, marking the beginning of the end with a storm?”

“Creative as ever.” Crowley had rolled his eyes, glance darting towards the closed blinds as he glared at the outside world. “We’re safe here, angel. For tonight, at least.”

Aziraphale laughed, despite himself, snuggling closer to the demon. “For tonight. Well that’s reassuring.”

The angel had slept fitfully that night, fists clenched as his mind was filled with visions of blinding light fading away into absolute darkness again and again, as if his brain was stuck in a loop he couldn’t break free from. He had woken in a cold sweat, brow drenched as he had stared up at the ceiling in the almost-darkness, tracing cracks in the plaster until he had, at last, fallen asleep from pure exhaustion.

The next three nights hadn’t been much better, though his dreams had ranged from finding himself swimming in a river of blood to stabbing a feather pillow with all the crazed ferocity of a madman. Each dream felt more vivid than the last, and each left him increasingly concerned about what message was trying to seep through the ether. Light, darkness, blood, feathers. Perhaps Gabriel wasn’t the only heavenly entity lacking in nuance, Aziraphale had thought ruefully when he’d woken that very morning, plucking an imaginary feather from his damp forehead.

Following their usual yin yang pattern of existence, Crowley had been sleeping like a baby for the past week. Partly, Aziraphale reasoned, because of his ongoing efforts at keeping fit (efforts that might not have extended far beyond a slightly-pacier-than-usual lunchtime constitutional with the dogs but the demon still celebrated each and every workout, and Aziraphale had no intention of raining on his very sedentary parade) but mostly because the angel’s revelation that he intended to fight beside Crowley, to defend the Earth to the very end, seemed to have created a sense of peace within the demon.

When, inevitably, the angel would wake in the dead of night and have to take a moment to calm his breathing before he could attempt sleep again, he would let the sound of the demon’s rhythmic snuffles of deep breathing soothe his soul, remind him that he was safe, that the love of his life was sleeping softly by his side, that everything was as it should be. And if staring at the fine lines in the ceiling and listening to Crowley’s breathing wasn’t enough to urge him back to sleep, Aziraphale would turn onto his side, tuck his knees up behind the demon’s thighs and nuzzle against his warm neck, savouring the heat of his skin until, eventually, sleep granted him mercy for a few more precious hours.

Knocking his thoughts of the past days free with a brisk shake of the head, Aziraphale took a sip of hot chocolate and sighed contentedly. While he wasn’t personally keen to partake in the sweet treat, Crowley had perfected his hot chocolate assembly skills over the decades, handling a miniature frothing whisk like no demon had before him. It was its own sort of joy, the ability to tease a smile out of a lover even when their mind was racing with worrying thoughts of how in the world the two of them, incompetent as ever, might possibly save the world. Again. Except plural, this time.

“Strange, to be carrying on as normal,” the angel remarked gloomily, licking a stray fleck of unmelted drinking chocolate from the side of the cup. At least when they had been counting down to the rapture there had been more…fanfare. No, that wasn’t the right word. Well, whichever word existed as the melancholy brother of fanfare. There had been a lot more of that. Final goodbyes to places and people they loved, goodbyes to each other, to the world. _Something_ , at least, to mark the ending of that era. That lifetime, as they had thought then. This time, though, there was nothing but endless trips to the Post Office to dispatch online book orders and the daily trauma of both loading and unloading the dishwasher. How did they manage to get through so many plates anyway? It was only the two of them, for heaven’s sake.

“Hmm.” Crowley’s response was a non-committal musing as he let a mouthful of wine sit on his tongue for a second before he swallowed it. “What else are we supposed to do, angel? We’ve got responsibilities now.”

“We’ve always got responsibilities.” Aziraphale found himself raising his voice, slamming his mug down onto the coffee table harder than intended. The hot chocolate inside slopped over the rim, the heat stinging his thumb until he sucked it away and flopped back against the sofa, huffing in frustration. “Nothing we do is ever enough. I just want them to…I just want them to let us go, Crowley. Why won’t he just leave us in peace?”

Crowley reached out a hand to squeeze the angel’s knee, not needing any clarification as to who the aforementioned _he_ was. “Because he’s a wanker. Don’t waste your time trying to understand the motivation of wankers, angel. You’ll go to the great celestial graveyard in the sky still wondering why the purple-eyed wankers of the universe are always the ones calling the shots. Maybe you should give up trying to _understand_ everything.”

“I'm an _angel_ , Crowley,” Aziraphale said, as if that explained anything at all. Before he continued speaking, he seemed to remember that there had been a teeny tiny incident almost a year previously that threw his title of _angel_ somewhat into jeopardy. “Well, for all intents and purposes. Wait, am I? I _feel_ somewhat ethereal. Who knows. Certainly not me. I must still have _something_ going on. Made a world, didn’t I? Most of one, anyway. I’m pretty sure heaven, as a department, isn’t very fond of me. Not that they ever were… Anyway, getting off track, aren’t I? Where was I? Oh yes, why won’t Gabriel just leave us alone? Ah, because he’s a wanker, of course, as you said, my dear.”

One of Crowley’s favourite pastimes was to watch Aziraphale have a conversation with himself. He would begin as if conversing with somebody else, usually Crowley, but invariably trail off on a tangent during which he would ask himself myriad questions, answer half of them, and then eventually find his way back to the original topic. Crowley didn’t mind waiting for him to talk himself back to the present, he’d always been patient where Aziraphale was concerned. Besides, watching the angel’s brows quirk up and down as he grew more animated with every passing moment was almost too endearing for words.

“Yes,” the demon confirmed, smiling. “He’s a wanker. Now, shall we talk about something more pleas-”

Before he could finish his abrupt subject change, Aziraphale barrelled on as if he hadn’t heard a word the demon had said. “What if we were already supposed to have left? What if we’ve left it too late?”

“I’m sure we’ll just…know. We’ll get a sign or something, surely. They can’t start the final battle without letting us know. Or did our invitation to be smote by Gabriel get lost in the inter-planetary postal system?” The demon chuckled as his very humorous quip, though Aziraphale seemed less appreciative of Crowley’s top class wit.

“What if we’ve already had a sign? What if the…wibbly wobbly moment in the gym was a sign? Or the earthquake? Or the storm? What if we’ve been getting signs this whole time and we’re just ignoring them like humans do? _Oh, I’m sure it’s fine that frogs are raining from the sky in Hungary, just another Tuesday, isn’t it?_ Why are we so bad at this, Crowley?”

Crowley waved the angel’s concern away with one hand. “We’ll know when it’s _the_ sign. This is probably just…the warm up round. I don’t know. It doesn’t _feel_ like we should go back yet, does it?”

“Oh, good. Well, I’m glad the entire fate of Earth, this world, the two of us, and everything we’ve ever held dear comes down to whether we _feel_ like it’s the right moment to swoop in. We’ll stagger in at one minute to doomsday, I’m sure. Honestly, Crowley, we’ve averted enough disasters that we should have a better idea of what we’re doing by now.”

“It’s a gentle learning curve.”

“What?” Aziraphale looked at the demon sharply, as if he might not have heard him properly.

“It’s not steep. It’s long. Low and slow. The learning curve… Saving the world from itself. Again. And again.” Crowley shrugged, took another sip of wine. He was feeling positively relaxed, contrary to the angel who was short-circuiting next to him. Crowley patted him on the arm. “Still, could be worse, couldn’t it? We could be watching all of this happen from _inside_ heaven. Imagine that.”

“I don’t _have_ to imagine it, Crowley. I think about it all the time. Specifically, when I’m laying awake unable to sleep because I’m running through every disaster scenario in my head. I think about what would have happened if they had let you back in at the _bloody_ R+R debacle. I think about how we would have had to stay away from each other, how we would have had to spend eternity living and working side by side as if we were strangers, as if we were nothing. I think about how it might have been Gabriel’s plan all along, to lure you back in, to dangle you in front of me like temptation he knew I would never resist. I think about what would have happened if he’d ever caught us, if…”

“We wouldn’t have.”

Aziraphale sighed, one hand steeped against his temple as he looked at Crowley through the gap between his thumb and index finger, eyes soft as he thought back to that day when they had chosen each other, despite the death sentence they had signed in doing so. “We wouldn’t have what?”

“We wouldn’t have stayed away from each other. We couldn’t have. We never did, did we? I don’t think much would have changed up there, angel. We would have tried to bring Gabriel down from the inside, that's all. It doesn’t matter if we’re here or there, the outcome will be the same. Me and you, together, putting an end to all of this, forever. It’s what we’re going to do here and it’s what we would have done if we’d ended up _up there_."

“Mmm.” Aziraphale considered Crowley’s words, reaching out to cradle his cheek with so much tenderness it could have been the very first time he’d felt the demon’s skin beneath his fingers. ”Still, if we _had_ ended up upstairs we might have had a few allies, at least.”

Crowley scoffed. “Good one, angel, tell us another.”

“I was just saying, you never know, do you?”

“It’s heaven. I think we know we have no allies to speak of upstairs. Just me and you, like always. Why change the habit of a lifetime?” Crowley smiled, nudging Aziraphale’s thigh with his knee as he glanced down at the coffee table. “Angel, your cocoa doth grow cold.”

And then, like an angel with the weight of multiple worlds on his shoulders, Aziraphale looked mournfully at his lukewarm hot chocolate. “Maybe this is a-”

“It’s not a sign, angel, it’s just a drink. Put your feet up, I’ll make you another one. Biscuit?”

For the first time that evening, the smile on Aziraphale’s face was laced with genuine anticipatory happiness. “Bring the whole tin. What? Don’t look at me like that. They’re medicinal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Ahh it feels like so long since I've written an author note 😭😭 I'm so glad to be back with this chapter and I really hope you all enjoy it. Plot things are occurring 🤔.
> 
> I wanted to apologise in advance if chapters are a little shorter for the next couple of weeks, I'm actually moving house next week so everything's a bit of a whirl of packing and sorting etc. I'm still planning on Wednesday updates for now, they may just be a little shorter for the foreseeable while I get things sorted.
> 
> I also wanted to take a minute to thank you all for being so kind and patient with me during lockdown. I know the main story plot was sort of put on pause a bit for those weeks but we're making our way there now, slowly but surely. I love writing this story so much and I love getting to hear from you all, it really boosts my day to have this to look forward to. It's been a bit of a wild year (understatement to end all understatements) but having this story and community as an escape has been more helpful than I know how to express.
> 
> Lots of love, and I'll see you all next week. I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and well <3.


	29. On Lackadaisy and Languishing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’d make an awful lot more progress if you stopped with the dramatic suspiring, my dear.”

**May. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

Crowley had had a lot of nightmares over the years. Fuelled by fear and guilt and regret, many of his season-long naps were accompanied by twitching limbs and cries into the night as he tried to wake himself from an inescapable terror. On occasion the images burning into his mind would be abstract: darkness and shadows and cliff edges that were more shards of glass than rocks. Those were the nightmares that left less of an imprint on his soul, the ones he could shake off faster. Those were the sort of nightmares that made Crowley fell, well, almost _normal_.

More often than not, though, the evil deeds that haunted his mind were his own, all of the terrible, treacherous things he had carried out in hell’s name. Survival. That was why he had done it, why he had reduced humanity to numbers, to data, to checkmarks on a page. To survive, to get back to Aziraphale, to live, perhaps, if he would ever be lucky enough to escape. And he had escaped, hadn’t he? As free from hell as it was possible for a demon to be, he reasoned. He had only been free of hell’s grip for a number of months, compared to the relative eternity that came before, but he felt further away from hell’s clutches than he ever had.

It had been some time since Crowley had had one of the latter nightmares, the kind that lingered like a shadowy thumbprint in his mind, an enduring echo that, to humanity, he was their own idea of a nightmare. Even so, Crowley’s days in the new world hadn’t been free from nightmares all together, at least not lately. For the past week Crowley had felt as though he was moving through a waking nightmare, even when the sun was shining outside and he was hours away from sleep. The latest nightmare that beckoned to him with thorny claws and dripping fangs wasn’t guilt or regret. But it _was_ fear. The primal, utterly human fear that one might find themselves gut-wrenchingly humiliated in front of a crowd of people who were braying in joy at witnessing such exquisite failure. Schadenfreude was, after all, one of humanity’s most shameful pleasures. The particular nightmare that Crowley found himself unable to escape from was the very real, very potent fear of standing on stage, gripping an instrument he didn’t know how to use, staring dumb-struck at the waiting crowd as they were, first, puzzled, then impatient and then, when enough excruciating seconds had ticked by, apoplectic with joy at the notion of coming together as a tribe to observe the failure of a weaker pack member.

But wait. It wasn’t a nightmare, was it? Because it was going to be Crowley’s reality in a matter of hours. Twenty four of them, in fact.

The demon had spent a great many centuries worshipping at the alter of hindsight and, much to Crowley’s chagrin, he had yet to undergo the sort of pivotal character growth that would release him from his devotion to that most frustrating deity. While his life’s biggest misstep wasn’t up for discussion (that would be the, er, failed heavenly rebellion that found him tumbling down, down, down to the pits of hell), he was growing increasingly concerned that his lackadaisical approach to self-taught guitar mastery would at least make the podium of his biggest regrets in recent memory.

When Aziraphale had sweetly prepared the tablature he would need to learn to be able to realistically pose as a human web-designer-cum-dog-walker-cum-amateur-guitarist, Crowley had promised he really would apply himself, that he would rehearse every night until he knew the songs perfectly, that he would absolutely _not_ leave things until the last minute so he had a desperate panic the night before the gig when he realised he’d learned absolutely nothing.

Alas. It was the night before the gig and Crowley had to admit he’d learned absolutely nothing.

There was still one day left for Crowley to master his craft, and perhaps if he tried his very best he would have a shot at wading through a couple of the simpler songs on the band’s setlist, at least. Instead, he found himself wafting from the sofa to the growing collection of plants on the windowsill, where he ran one index finger along the underside of their leaves and sighed mournfully.

“You’d make an awful lot more progress if you stopped with the dramatic suspiring, my dear.” Aziraphale pursed his lips as he peered over the rim of his just-for-show spectacles to hone in on the next crossword clue. From a few feet behind him, the angel heard footsteps followed by another laboured breath, and rolled his eyes, tutting pointedly. “For heaven’s sake, Crowley. What do you think floating around like the ghost of a Victorian waif is going to achieve?”

“I feel glum, angel,” Crowley said plainly, pacing a small circle and then, realising he was exactly back where he started, walked over to flop down next to Aziraphale on the sofa. “It’s going to be embarrassing.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I sound wholly unsupportive but you really do only have yourself to blame.” Aziraphale barely looked up from the paper, leaning forward to try and force the word _LEMONADE_ to fit in a seven letter answer box.

“I _know_ ,” Crowley cried, hurling himself back against the sofa cushions and flinging his arms up in the air, as if that would achieve anything other than a mild jerk in his shoulders. “I just…I got distracted, angel. Dogs to walk, croissants to eat, you know how it is.”

While Aziraphale continued on with the crossword, pausing every other answer to take a sip of tea, Crowley turned his attention to being a mild nuisance. First he drummed a rhythm on his thighs that perfectly matched the song Lucifer and the Guys would be opening with the next night. _Maybe I should have been a drummer,_ the demon thought ruefully. Then he played a very loud game of hide and seek with Barnaby for ten minutes, which left him temporarily entertained but also covered in dog hair, which Aziraphale snippily noted he would undoubtedly be peppering the bedsheets with later that evening. Finally, the demon took to picking up every nick-nack on the sideboard to look at it through narrowed eyes as if one of them might hold the key to guitar-based superstardom. When no answers could be found on the base of the variety of ceramic objects Anthony had picked up over the years (including the miniature form of one very familiar statue), Crowley returned to the first activity he had embarked on that evening: sighing.

“Would you _stop_ feeling sorry for yourself?” Aziraphale snapped, slamming the paper down on the coffee table and clambering to his feet. He bustled off towards the kitchen, muttering something about a glass of wine in exchange for Crowley’s promise to stop sighing. The angel returned a moment later with a very full glass of red wine, and made his way carefully over to Crowley, where he deposited it in the demon’s hand and kissed him lightly on the forehead. As Aziraphale straightened up, Crowley noticed his eyebrows knit together in confusion that was streaked with dregs of annoyance. The angel reached out to the sideboard, where he picked up a small ceramic penguin Crowley had been playing with moments before, and turned it around until it faced in the opposite direction. “What? The little ceramic penguin always faces south, Crowley.”

As if a long dormant memory had just unfurled one mud-covered root, Crowley felt a wave of unease settle over him. This wasn’t one of their usual situations, he realised, where he could muddle through for long enough that Aziraphale would swoop in and save the day in the end, just like he always did. No, this whole _impersonating a human and performing in front of a live audience_ debacle was his responsibility and there was nothing the angel could do to help any more than he already had.

There was nothing for it, was there? All he could do was sit back and let fate handle things. If the universe wanted him to succeed, he would do so; if it had conspired to secure his failure, it would come to pass. There had always been a certain liberation in handing over your destiny to a higher power, Crowley thought, with a shrug. Perhaps that’s why humans still had faith after all of those years.

“Shouldn’t you be practising? I know what you’re doing. You’re sitting there deciding to let _fate do what it will_ , aren’t you?”

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, then looked away guiltily. He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“We can only wonder what greatness you might have achieved if only you didn’t have a penchant for spending quite so much time…languishing.”

“Oh, don’t take your anger at me out on the noble art of languishing, angel. It’s an underrated skill, the ability to languish, to _truly_ recline and look stylish at the same time. An awful lot of practising goes into it, I assure you.”

“Well, you’ve practised enough over the years that I’m sure you’re quite the expert. Now, how about applying yourself to something that’s a little more important, like…”

Crowley rolled his eyes, reaching forward for his glass of wine and yelping as a brief flash of pain darted out from his shoulder. The sharp flare of discomfort lasted for a second, maybe less, as if he’d just turned slightly too far in one direction and over-exerted himself. Over-exertion was, of course, the enemy of all near-professional languishers.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, one hand finding the demon’s shoulder as he gently massaged the soft tissue between the demon’s collarbone and chest. “Are you hurt?”

“No, no, I’m fine.” Crowley smiled, catching the angel’s fingers and bringing them to his lips.

Satisfied, Aziraphale nodded softly and returned to the newspaper, as Crowley retrieved his wine and took a sip. And then a glug. They sat in peaceful silence for a moment, until realisation dawned on them like dual lightbulbs had been lit above their heads.

“Wait a minute,” Crowley said slowly, as an idea began to take shape in his mind.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to…?”

“Yes.” The demon turned to him, grinning. Maybe, for the first time, he had dreamed up a way to defeat his nightmare in armed combat. A moment of pain to escape the horror of public humiliation? No contest. “Yes, angel, I am. I think I have a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy hump day, chums! I hope you've all had a lovely week and the weather's been a delight wherever you are in the world. It's all a bit grey and then sunny and then rainy and then muggy here in the UK...perfect weather to move house in 😂. By the time I post next week's chapter (on Wednesday, as usual) I should be all moved and unpacked, hooray!
> 
> What have you all been up to? Let me know your news! What's the best thing you've eaten all week? Please, I'm practically a Hobbit so I need to know these things.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this one, oh and I slipped a teeny tiny little horror reference into this chapter, I hope you can spot it if you're a horror fan :D.


	30. Desperate Measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aziraphale, bring me the hammer!”

**May. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

It was a dark and stormy night in London and an angel and a demon were doing what they did best: bickering. While the celestial stowaways had never needed a specific reason to bicker their hearts out, the topic at hand that particular evening was whether or not Crowley should go ahead with his rather controversial plan to save himself from abject humiliation at Lucifer and the Guys’ gig the next night. While the demon was committed, the angel was entirely unsure.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Aziraphale asked sombrely, looking at Crowley from underneath a brow creased with worry. “There’s still time, you know. You could just _learn_ how to play the guitar.”

From the other end of the well-worn sofa, Crowley slapped both hands against his thighs and fixed Aziraphale with a look of pure determination. “This is the only way. Nobody can know about my ineptitude, angel. Does this look like the vessel of a demon who can’t play the guitar?”

“You might _look_ the part, Crowley, but all you can actually play is that godawful White Wedding song.”

“Excuse me? White Wedding is a modern classic and you would do well to remember that.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, remembering the drunken evening decades previously that had culminated in the demon attempting a rather left field approach at seduction. It hadn’t worked. Well, it had, if the angel was honest. But he liked to pretend it had been an entirely unsuccessful endeavour. Keeping up appearances and all. “If your idea of a modern classic is you drunkenly gyrating at me from behind a guitar while screaming _there’s nothing pure in this world…_ ”

“Oh, that is my idea of a modern classic, angel, I can assure you.” Crowley raised an eyebrow, thinking back to that glorious night in the 1980s when he’d played his heart out in the bookshop and Aziraphale had fallen for him hook, line, and sinker. “Anyway, shhh, that was supposed to be between us.”

The angel looked up at the ceiling, then he looked down at the rug beneath their feet. He looked from left to right and then back at Crowley, blinking slowly as if waiting for his point to sink in. “There’s literally nobody else here.”

“Well, the walls have ears.” And then, as if to illustrate that the two of them were not, in fact, alone, Barnaby came ambling out of the kitchen and flopped heavily onto his bed with a deep exhale, as if he had had a truly taxing day of chasing squirrels in the park. Crowley whirled around in his seat, jabbing an index finger in the dog’s direction. “Barnaby. Barnaby has ears. Does…?”

“Yes, of course he does. Don’t start all that again.” Aziraphale sighed, then waved a hand briskly through the air to bring them back to more pertinent affairs. “None of this matters because you only know how to play one song on the guitar and that song isn’t what you’re supposed to be playing tomorrow.”

“It’s fine, angel, I know how to play every song that has ever been dreamed into existence. It’s all up here.” The demon tapped his head, as if that simple gesture would soothe the angel’s soul and reassure him that everything was a-okay, or tickety boo, or whichever outdated phrase he was favouring at that moment in time.

“No, actually, it isn’t. Not if you don’t want to send up a ruddy great target telling Gabriel exactly where to find us.” Swallowing tightly, all light-hearted banter forgotten for a moment, Aziraphale shook his head and rested a warning hand on Crowley’s knee as he leaned in towards the demon. He waited for him to nod slowly as he realised his conundrum, and then Aziraphale relaxed, smiling in a self-satisfied way some critics might go far enough to deem smug. “Accept it, Crowley, you can’t do this, not without hard work or a miracle.”

Forever loathe to be told he couldn’t do something, Crowley shrank back, visibly affronted. “Well, there’s a lot _you_ can’t do without a miracle either.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Aziraphale scoffed, pursing his lips before taking a sharp bite out of a shortbread biscuit.

“Fine, ask me where to find the nearest swimming pool.” Crowley swung his legs up onto the sofa, depositing two slim calves in Aziraphale’s lap and leaning back against the cushions until he was all but reclined. It was far too relaxed a position for a demonic entity who had no business being so horizontal, as far as the angel was concerned.

“Well…”

“In Japanese.” Crowley finished his sentence with a smug little smile of his own, before he leaned forward to snatch the last half a biscuit off of Aziraphale’s plate.

Ignoring the biscuit-related theft for a moment, Aziraphale dropped into silent thought for a minute, searching the recesses of his mind for the answer to Crowley’s question. It must be in there somewhere. How many years had he spent in Japan, that beautiful country that had given him the greatest gift of all, his favourite food? He _knew_ the answer, he knew he did. It would come to him any moment, he just had to think really hard and… The angel’s face fell as realisation dawned on him. He couldn’t think _too_ hard, lest he teeter over into miracle territory and send up the aforementioned ruddy great target into the heavens. He looked across at Crowley, horrified. “I…I’m not even intelligent. I’m just…miraculous.”

"Miraculously infuriating, yeah. Face it, angel, we’re not special. We’re just…walking Wikipedias.”

As the words fell from the demon’s mouth and Aziraphale recoiled in shock and disappointment at the realisation of his own mediocrity, the light above them flickered for a moment, plunging them into a half second of darkness. A heartbeat later it came again, and again, but by the time either grew suspicious (Anthony’s flat wasn’t exactly the Ritz, of course, and momentary power cuts weren’t the most shocking occurrence) the miniature blackouts had already run their course.

The two of them looked up in tandem, considered the failing power for a second before their eyes met and they forced any concerns away with a perfectly synced shake of the head. Best to ignore it, they reasoned internally, just another miniature inconvenience in a string of odd events that had been happening in recent days. Not a sign, Aziraphale decided. Just a warning, something telling them to be alert but not to leap to action. Not yet, anyway. While not the most memorable event of the couple’s lively evening of bickering and shortbread inhalation, the power cut did serve the helpful purpose to distract Aziraphale from his disturbing moment of self-discovery and brought him promptly back to the matter at hand.

“You can’t do this, Crowley. It will be a disaster. What if you get it wrong? You’re not in _your_ body, remember? You need to look after it for Anthony, you’re just borrowing it. It’s like a…library book, you have a responsibility to return it as you found it.”

“Oh, so now it fits your argument I _am_ like a library book?” Crowley rolled his eyes, tugging open a drawer in the coffee table and rifling through in search of the correct implement. Something pointy or something blunt? He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for but he knew inspiration would strike at the correct moment. Fate, after all, always had a hand in these things.

“Stop it,” Aziraphale cried desperately, fingers reaching out to wrap around Crowley’s wrist and pull his hand away from the drawer. “This isn’t worth hurting yourself over. Just…just stop this, we’ll think of something.”

Crowley gave the angel a small smile of encouragement, soft-eyed and reassuring. “I’ve made my mind up, angel. It’s what needs to be done, it’s a necessary evil. We can’t let anybody find out we’re _us_ , can we? Nothing that messes with the humans’ lives, remember?”

“I still think there must be another way.” Aziraphale sighed, hands clutching the knees of his trousers as he looked forlornly at Crowley’s shoulders, then arms, then hands. The demon had always been a wayward soul, ever since the day they’d met. Before it, even. Once an idea was iron-clad in his head it was futile to try and talk him out of it; in fact, any attempt to try and change his mind would just marry him to the idea all the more. Aziraphale had learned long ago that in situations where Crowley was loathe to back down, the only thing to do was to keep him safe. As safe as possible, at least. “I’m sure if you started now you could have learned the first song by…”

“Aziraphale, bring me the hammer!” Crowley pointed at the sideboard, one finger thrust out dramatically as he fixed the angel with a look of steely determination.

After a moment of searching through dusty boxes, stacks of books, and an almost empty bottle of absinthe that left the angel shuddering at the mere memory of the stuff, Aziraphale felt his fingers graze the smooth wood and cool metal that he was reluctantly searching for. The angel straightened up, held the hammer to his chest, and wracked his brains for a last minute intervention to steer the demon away from his usual path of chaotic destruction. _He could have just learned the play the damned thing,_ the angel thought ruefully, before reaching out for the demon’s fingers.

“Give me your hand, Crowley.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Okay, first of all, I definitely want to make 'what's the best thing you ate in the last week?' a recurring question after every chapter because omg everyone's replies sounded delicious and now I'm already thinking about dinner and it's barely past 9am here :D. I told you, Hobbit. Maybe second breakfast, we'll see.
> 
> So tell me, what's the best thing you ate in the last week? Mine is either a samoa (the first time I've ever tried one, can you believe it? Girl Scout Cookies are like gold dust in the UK! Thank you to my glorious, generous stateside benefactor. Or a humble smoked ham and mustard mayo sandwich from M&S. Honestly, they are so bloody good but this week is the first time I've been to an actual shop in four months because corona...so you best believe I bought four of the blighters to tide me over 😂.
> 
> Anyway, now I've rambled about food for four paragraphs...I hope you're all well and enjoyed the chapter. I've just about finished unpacking(-ish...the boxes are behind closed doors, at least) so I'm really excited to get settled and then get a new writing routine established!
> 
> The next chapter will be published next Wednesday, where we'll find out exactly what Crowley plans on doing with that hammer...let's just all be relieved he has Aziraphale looking out for him 😂.
> 
> Oh and shoutout to HolRose and PumpkinandBum for spotting my Misery reference in the last chapter 😂! Please enjoy the Misery theme continuing in this week's playlist song :D.
> 
> <3


	31. Dirty Birdies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s the rat race, Aziraphale. It got to me.”

**May. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

“It’s lucky Anthony doesn’t have a sledgehammer laying around or you might do yourself some real damage.” Aziraphale sighed, leaning back against the arm of the sofa and folding his hands across his knees as he prepared to watch the show.

“Don’t be dramatic, angel, this isn’t a Stephen King novel.” Crowley rolled his eyes without looking up, instead preferring to fix his gaze on his own slim fingers, which were splayed out on the coffee table in front of him. In the other hand he held the hammer, which looked far too perfect to have ever seen hard work. Perhaps, Crowley thought wryly, this experiment into the lengths he would go to to avoid hard work might be the tool’s very first outing. Certainly its most consequential expedition, at least.

Front teeth sinking into the soft flesh of his lip to harness both his courage and aim, Crowley raised the hammer, wondered briefly what physical trauma in a human corporation with fully functioning pain receptors would feel like, and then prepared to bring the implement swinging down in a smooth arcing motion. At the last moment, Aziraphale interrupted with a cry of urgency.

“Crowley, wait!”

The demon looked up, impatience etched across his furrowed brow as he huffed wearily. On the plus side, he thought, perhaps his impending mangling had kicked the angel’s imagination up a gear and led his great mind to dream up a last minute alternative. “What?”

“At least put a mat down, you’ll mark the coffee table.”

A moment later, placemat hastily shoved beneath his right hand, Crowley resumed the position. He didn’t want to do himself any real damage, that would hurt, after all. Just a small bruise that would account for his less than stellar playing the next evening, something he might be able to pass off as a sprain or a strain or…some other human injury that would suffice. While he wasn’t wholly sure what either a sprain or a strain looked like, he knew a bruise was the universal signal that _something injury-like had occurred._

“Okay, I’m going to do it.” Crowley sucked in a breath and held the air in his lungs, steadying himself as he looked up and down the length of his fingers. _Not the nails. Not the knuckles either, that’s got to hurt. Something…meatier. Curse this raffish physique. Curse it all the way to the underworld. I knew I should have eaten that extra croissant; my kingdom for some extra cushioning!_

From his front row seat at the other end of the sofa, Aziraphale watched a rainbow of emotions pass across Crowley’s face. Currently he was displaying concern as he looked down at his fingers. _Probably wishing he’d eaten that last croissant he refused like a martyr_ , Aziraphale thought, as he raked his fingers through Barnaby’s fur and smiled down at the big black dog who was panting merrily, blissfully unaware that his demonic owner was seconds away from bringing about the demise of his fictional guitar playing career.

“Right. I’m really going to do it now.” Another promise, another sharp inhale, another moment of the hammer held aloft, wavering in the air as if on the precipice of fulfilling its destiny. And then another growl of frustration as Crowley snatched his fingers back and balled his fist above the coffee table, roaring at his own cowardice.

“I don’t want to interrupt while you’re doing so well but…”

“Then don’t,” the demon snapped, firing a glare in the angel’s direction as he silenced Aziraphale with narrowed eyes.

“I’m just saying,” Aziraphale continued, voice disarmingly pleasant as he trailed his fingers back and forth through the thick underbrush of Barnaby’s tail. “Instead of trying and failing at this _ridiculous_ plan, you could have spent this time…”

“Learning to play the guitar? I know, Aziraphale, I _know_. Don’t you think I know that would have been a better plan than this? Of course it would have been. But here we are. It’s nearly midnight and I’ve done _nothing_ except stare at my own fingernails for the last half an hour. I don’t need your running commentary on all the ways I’ve buggered up this gig, all right? Now, if you really want to help me you could pour me a whiskey. A double. Dutch courage and all that.”

Conceding that perhaps a whiskey each was exactly what they both needed to get through this pointless, over-dramatic, half-baked ordeal, Aziraphale nodded sagely and took himself off in the direction of the decanter. “Right you are, my dear. Right you are.”

***

An hour later, fuzzy-headed with a half empty decanter leaning against the sofa cushions between them, Aziraphale reached out and wrapped his fingers around the shaft of the hammer.

“No,” Crowley said, shaking his head vehemently. “Let me do it. It’ll hurt less.”

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?” Aziraphale pursed his lips, relaxing his grip on the hammer, despite his instincts telling him to wrench it out of the demon’s hand as quickly as possible. _Slowly slowly, catchy worm_ , the angel thought to himself. “I really think I ought to do it. I’m far more meticulous than you. And stronger.”

“I know you’re stronger than me and that’s exactly why you’re not going to do it. You’ll break my bloody fingers off. Anthony’s fingers. My fingers? _Somebody’s_ fingers, anyway.” Crowley’s words came out thickly, one too many whiskeys playing havoc with his usual biting tone. As the whiskey had been drunk and Crowley’s determination had begun to wane, it became clear that the demon really didn’t want to be the one to wield the hammer but, given that the only other option was a half-drunk Aziraphale, he had no choice. Except, of course, the choice to knuckle down and concentrate on learning a new skill, something Aziraphale had reminded him at roughly thirty second intervals.

“I think _I_ could have learned the guitar by this point,” the angel said, right on cue, before stroking down the length of Crowley’s middle finger with his thumb. “Why don’t we just think of an alternative, my love? A migraine or a…stomach ache, perhaps?”

“A stomach ache…” The demon trailed off, stroking his chin as he pondered the notion. A moment later, he clapped one hand against his thigh in glee. “A bad oyster, it’s perfect.”

“ _There is no such thing as a bad oyster!_ ” Aziraphale wailed, darkness clouding his face and casting shadowy lash lines down the smooth surface of his pink cheeks.

“What was I thinking?” the demon muttered to himself, rolling his eyes as if the idea of feigning a stomach ache made him quite the old silly. “A dicky tummy doesn’t mean I can’t play the guitar, does it? No, angel, that would never work. Have you got any ideas that aren’t idiotic?”

Aziraphale huffed, dropping his voice to a low rumble that was really more of a stage whisper. “Besides mangling yourself for absolutely no reason other than I suspect you’re bored of a life free from regular bouts of drama?”

“I’m not bored,” Crowley protested, pulling the hammer back until it was resting against his jutting collarbone. He considered the statement for a moment, then conceded that perhaps the angel had a point, then shook his head and promptly dismissed the entire notion. “How could I be bored? I’m living with the love of my life, without fear, for once. I’ve got my dog, my dream job, a flat in the greatest city in the world, friends and family and a weekly veg box and…oh, for somebody’s sake, I think I might be bored, angel.”

“You don’t say.” The angel raised an eyebrow, then gently tugged the hammer out of Crowley’s grip. “I doubt you’re actually _bored_ , my love. Just…anxious to close this chapter and move onto whatever comes after the Really Big One, perhaps?”

“It’s the rat race, Aziraphale. It got to me. Capitalism, the Man, affluenza…it all got to me. This is…this is exactly what the book warned me about. The book said…”

“Now, now, let’s not get off topic.” Aziraphale wrapped an arm around Crowley’s shoulder, gently _shhh_ ing to drown out the demon’s babble about societal pressure and burnout. “Let’s just put the hammer over here, nicely out of reach, shall we?”

“But my plan.” Crowley eyed the hammer longingly, a second before Aziraphale moved it further away from the demon, tucking it down the side of the sofa where it was safely ensconced. “I need to think of something, don’t I, angel? They won’t believe me if I rock up saying I’ve got a bad eye or a sore armpit or that the weight of life’s responsibilities has rendered me incapable of learning an atonal melody.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to reply, then froze as he pondered where Crowley had picked up the phrase _atonal melody_. He shook his head, probably at one of those artist retreats he had favoured tagging along to in the 70s. A moment later, it was time for the clement suggestion he had been waiting to posit since Crowley’s great hammer experiment had been dreamed up. “Now,something’s just come to me, my dear. We could just _pretend_ you’ve hurt your hand, couldn’t we?I think there’s a sling in the first aid kit. No harm, no foul.”

“But that would be lying!” Crowley gasped, momentarily taken aback at the angel’s suggestion of a bald-faced untruth to pull the wool over the eyes of their nearest and dearest.

“Well, sometimes a little white lie is better than reducing your fingers to demonic schnitzel.” Next to him, the demon yawned and Aziraphale noted the lilac circles under his eyes, bruise-like and puffy, as if perhaps his nerves about the next evening had manifested themselves beneath his skin.

The angel stood up, offering a hand to the demon and nodding towards the bedroom with a knowing smile on his face. “Come on, let me show you something I stumbled across on the internet that will help you forget all about the rat race. And the illuminati. And whatever else is troubling you, my love.”

Nerves, tiredness, weariness about society’s inherent inequity temporarily banished in favour of the curves of his angel’s thighs, Crowley allowed himself to be hurried to the bedroom. As an angel and a demon closed the door behind them, undamaged hand in undamaged hand, and shut themselves away from the outside world, the lights in the corridor outside the flat blacked out for a second, and then flickered back to life before anybody at all even noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Happy hump day and I hope you're all having a very lovely week indeed. Thank you so much for swinging by last week to tell me the best food you'd had, it all sounded sooo good. My1Alias, thank you for the roll recipe - I've bookmarked it so I don't forget to make them :D.
> 
> The title of this week's chapter is after Pumpkinandbum's suggestion a couple of chapters ago, I couldn't resist one more Misery reference!
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this one and next week we'll have a location shift to the Devil's Den as it's going to be gig night. I'll be back on Wednesday as usual so see you all then...and if you're so inclined I would *still* love to hear what your best meal of the last week was because as we all know...Hobbit life.
> 
> Lots of love <3


	32. Dig Me Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “On the water?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing Luci’s cup with disdain. “Has the world shifted on its axis?”

**May. The Devil’s Den, Islington.**

It had been decades since Crowley had first visited the smoky, sticky-floored nirvana of the Devil’s Den, a place he had come to look upon with near church-like reverence as Earth’s only hallowed place he could walk upon unscathed. As the years had ticked by, he had grown ever fonder of the dingy underground club, would wile away countless evenings nodding along to the growling roar of vocals, the trash of guitars, the relentless gunfire of the drums. It was a place where he had come to feel almost comfortable, well, as comfortable as a demon prowling the globe could possibly feel.

The Den had always been something of an escape to Crowley, a place where he could drink (miraculously) cold beer, recharge his metaphorical batteries, and try not to think about how it might feel to dig his fingers into the soft fabric of Aziraphale’s waistcoat and pull the angel close for a kiss that might just change the course of the world. Yes, Islington’s unremarkable alternative club was a place where Crowley had always been allowed to slink from corner to corner without attracting so much as a raised eyebrow, which was why it was a special kind of unnerving that everybody who had clapped eyes on him that evening had reacted with a cheer, or a friendly wave, or (in a particularly gruelling five second stretch of agony) an exceedingly awkward hug.

“Why is everyone _looking_ at me?” Crowley hissed, curling his fingers around Aziraphale’s as he dug around in the angel’s pocket in search of an anchor to grip onto as they wound their way through the throngs of drinkers who had arrived in plenty of time to secure a spot with a clear view of the stage.

“Because you’re a star, my dear.” Aziraphale smiled, drawing a loose heart shape on the back of Crowley’s hand with his thumb. He wondered idly if the demon could sense the outline he’d drawn, if it might bring him an iota of comfort.

Crowley’s unoccupied hand, deemed his _bad_ hand for the evening, was meticulously wrapped in a bandage (Aziraphale had watched a YouTube tutorial, for authenticity’s sake), primed and ready to play the supporting role in the most important display of acting in the demon’s already dramatic existence.

Bandaged hand stuck resolutely to his side, firmly away from eye-level, Crowley glared at a couple who paused to smile warmly at him before returning to their previous conversation. “They know, angel. I know they know.”

“What do you want to drink?” Aziraphale asked cheerily, propping both elbows against the bar and sighing as if he couldn’t be happier to be back in the place that had been the scene of so many nights of debauchery. While the Den might have represented anonymity and escapism for Crowley, for Aziraphale it was the epitome of freedom. Glorious, gin-soaked, _sin_ -soaked freedom.

“Nothing,” the demon muttered, resting his chin on his hand before he jumped back, burying it safely in his pocket before anybody could notice the bulky bandage that was wound around his skin from his slim wrist to his knuckles. “I need to be sharp, angel. I need to be alert. I need to…”

“Calm down. That’s what you need.” Aziraphale lowered his voice, before smiling at the barman and pretending to scan the row of bottles behind him, as if he didn’t already know exactly what he was going to order. “Two gins please, my good man.”

“Double fisting again tonight, mate?” the barman asked, laughing at the double-entendre before he loosed a slug of gin into the two cups he’d plucked from the drying rack.

Aziraphale frowned for a moment, before connecting the dots and nodding with a guilty smile. Of course they would have made the effort to commit Zira’s face to memory, given he was Anthony’s shiny new boyfriend who had become something of a fixture in the weeks that had led up to, well, Aziraphale and Crowley’s Grand Cranial Kidnapping was one suitable title he’d been batting around in his head. The angel held his hands up in a gesture of _you rumbled me_ , joining in with the barman’s innocuous chatter until both drinks were safely clutched in his palms and he shepherded Crowley over to a quiet table away from the stage.

“You look awfully damp, my dear. Here, let me.” Aziraphale deposited one plastic cup on the table, ferreting around in his pocket until he pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief and reached across the table to dab at Crowley’s forehead with it. The demon, who had long since learned that resistance was futile, simply sighed and hoped none of hell’s emissaries who may or may not have been sent to track him down were bearing witness to the undignified mopping of his sweaty, sweaty brow.

“Must you?” Crowley breathed, closing his eyes until the deed was done. When he opened them he was greeted with a sight that filled him with terror, Raphael and Luci descending the stairs with Mick following a pace behind. “Oh…no. Angel, red alert. Archangel, Morningstar, Allotment King at two o’clock.”

“Just act natural,” the angel whispered, pasting a smile on his face and waving brightly at the trio as they caught sight of them and made a beeline for their table. “Make small talk for a minute, then make your excuses and go backstage to find the others. You can do this, my love, it’s just like we practised. In a few hours this will all be over and we can get you a McFlurry as a treat.”

“McFluffy.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Crowley shook his head, hid his hand out of sight under the table and tried to summon the most undetectable fake smile to tug the corners of his lips up into something resembling happiness.

His cheeks had already begun to ache.

It was going to be a long night.

***

“…And then I said, _of course I don’t, I’m not an otter_!” Raphael boomed the punchline of his story so loudly that his words seemed to buoy above the background noise in the Den, as if the music was merely there as a soundtrack to his anecdote.

Around the table, Aziraphale, Luci and Mick roared with laughter, Mick slapping one large hand down against the table as Aziraphale slopped a glug of gin out of his glass as he lurched forward in hysterics. Only one solitary demon remained stony-faced, staring down at a particularly interesting knot of wood cross-sectioned in the table.

“Are you all right there, son?” Mick asked, nudging Crowley with his elbow and glancing across at him from underneath a brow creased with concern. “Nervous?”

“Mmhmm,” Crowley hummed, nodding tightly and forcing his lips into the semblance of a smile. Out of sight, he flexed the fingers of his bandaged hand as well as he was able to, then prepared for the grand reveal of his unfortunately-timed injury. “Actually, I, er…”

“Who’s for one more before this one has to disappear?” Luci asked, bracing their hands against the table as they stood up, black lace sleeve brushing against Raphael’s arm as they leaned across to retrieve his empty glass.

It was a split-second movement, something anybody else might have missed, but Crowley watched as Raphael’s fingers curled around Luci’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was a tiny gesture but it filled Crowley with a swell of comfort, a golden wave of nostalgia that soothed him until Luci sashayed off to the bar and the conversation picked up again.

As Raphael and Mick ping-ponged questions about the bookshop in Aziraphale’s direction, the angel held court and left Crowley to disappear into himself. While their happy chatter dissolved into a pleasant hum of background ambience, the demon busied himself with darting looks at the backstage door to see if any of his bandmates had arrived. It was a little early in the night for them to start warming up, congregating as usual in the damp little room behind the stage, but he was hoping to catch Dan before the others. Whether the singer was more patient or just a little less astute than the others was up for debate but Crowley knew everything would go a lot more smoothly if Dan was the one to hear his excuse, rather than Sammy or, horror of horrors, Lily.

“You look like you’re away in the stars.” Luci’s lilting purr tugged Crowley back to the present, and the demon turned to find them offering him a half pint of beer, head inclined in encouragement. “Go on. You seem all out of sorts tonight.”

_Tempting me even in another world_ , Crowley thought, letting a smile escape as he took the cup and let a cold, bitter sip of beer tingle in his throat. Maybe a quick drink with friends wouldn’t be the worst way to calm down before the big moment of impending doom and dismay and humiliation that neither he nor his human counterpart would ever, ever live down.

“On the water?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing Luci’s cup with disdain. “Has the world shifted on its axis?”

“Pipe down, you.” Luci batted at the angel’s forearm, laughing as they took a sip. “My own generosity of spirit backfired on me, actually. Too many disastrous run-ins with room service lately so I thought I’d treat us to a proper meal out this evening. You know, eat enough green stuff to stave off rickets until we get our keys back from the architects. Anyway, apparently salt by the fistful is the new way to _bring out the flavour in the vegetables_ so, yes, Zira, on the water indeed before my ankles get too puffy to fit into these ludicrously expensive boots I’m sporting.”

Crowley laughed, picking up a thread from Luci’s story and running with it, elbowing Mick as he raised one eyebrow. It was surprisingly simple to slip into Anthony’s sharp character, that loving way of poking his most cherished friends coming more than easily to the demon. It was a fun mask to hide behind, and Crowley understood why Anthony spent so much time assuming his faux-prickly persona. “Speaking of rickets… Didn’t bring us a vegetable box this week? Tight arse.”

“What?” Mick looked across at him, voice disarmingly soft as confusion etched itself across the man’s face. His half-drunk bottle of beer was held loosely in one hand and he looked from Luci to Raphael, as if either might hold the answer to Crowley’s question. All three faces shared the same empty look. “What vegetable box? I don’t follow you, son.”

Crowley looked desperately at Aziraphale, found the angel giving Mick a curious look that bordered on concerned. He looked back at Mick and spoke again, as if perhaps explaining things at half his usual speed might help. “A vegetable box. From the allotment. Just a…just a joke.”

“Oh.” Mick nodded briskly, then an undefinable sense of unease crept its way around the table as five faces turned their attention to their drinks, rather than the awkward silence that gripped them. For a moment it seemed to Crowley as though the man sitting next to him was nobody at all, as if he was a blank slate that all of the _Mick_ had been scraped clean of. And then, before the song blasting in the background finished its second chorus, Mick let out a barking laugh of relief as his face relaxed back into its usual crinkling smile. “Oh! No, right you are, my boy. The allotment. My allotment, of course, took me a minute there.”

Crowley joined in with a non-committal sound, something halfway between a chuckle and a sigh, eyes trained on Mick as the man fell back into an easy conversation with Raphael and Luci. Across the table, Aziraphale was reaching out to lay a hand on Mick’s arm but stopped himself a moment before his fingers made contact, as if he’d brushed against an invisible barrier. He met Crowley’s eyes and gave him a weak smile, accompanied by an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, which was a far less comforting gesture than Crowley presumed the angel had intended it to be. _Forget it for now, we’ll talk later_ , he seemed to say.

_What was that?_ the demon asked himself, narrowing his eyes as he watched Mick laughing at Raphael’s teasing impression of Luci’s near-tearful reaction at seeing the way the new windows in their almost-finished flat let in unparalleled drifts of light. He was there, he was sitting there laughing and drinking and joking as if he hadn’t just momentarily forgotten about the existence of his most cherished pastime, but for a moment it was as if Mick had disappeared entirely, leaving only a rough approximation in his place. _We lost you for a minute there, didn’t we? Where did you go? What brought you back?_

“Wheyyy, there he is!” Dan’s voice sounded thinly from behind the table and Crowley turned to find Lucifer and the Guys’ singer waving at him and cheering with far too much enthusiasm for somebody who was about to spend an hour growling into a microphone.

The demon felt Aziraphale’s hand, heavy on his shoulder, and then came whispered words and warm breath against his cheek. “That’s your cue, my dear. I’ll be front and centre if you need me, and don’t forget it’s your _right_ hand that’s been in the wars.”

He turned his cheek to catch Aziraphale’s lips in a kiss and then stood to leave, letting his bandaged hand hang by his side as he drained the last dregs of beer from his cup. It was Luci who spotted the bandage first, and they reached out for his wrist with a gasp of shock. “What’s this, darling?”

There was no time for an explanation, as Dan swept in to sling an arm around Crowley’s shoulder and guide him away from the table, promising to meet the others for a drink after the show. The glaring white bandage wrapped around his hand had gone seemingly unnoticed by the singer, who had far more pressing concerns on his mind.

“Listen mate,” he said, voice low as the two of them weaved through the crowd and headed towards the backstage door. “Lily’s in an absolute corker of a bad mood so just…don’t do anything to piss her off before we get on stage, deal?”

“Deal.” Crowley swallowed, smiling bleakly as he raised his hand and watched Dan’s face fall. “There’s just one thing I forgot to mention…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Afternoon all! I hope you're all doing well and enjoyed this week's chapter. Will Aziraphale's bandaging last the night? Will Lily lose her absolute shite when Crowley walks backstage? Will Aziraphale make it through one night at the Den without bringing shame to the celestial household? Time will tell :D.
> 
> Thank you all, again, for keeping me well stocked with food ideas and copious amounts of food envy with all your amazing comments. If you're in the food to share more of your favourite treats from the last week I would love to hear what you've been munching! From my side, I think the yummiest thing I've had in the last week is a brunch wrap - scrambled eggs, sausage, hash brown, bacon, ketchup: bung it in a wrap, sorted.
> 
> <3


	33. This is Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re Lucifer and the Guys, and this is Hell.”

**May. The Devil’s Den, Islington.**

“Well, if it wasn’t you, who was it, Sammy?”

Crowley heard Lily before he saw her, which wasn’t an occurrence that gave him particular reason for concern. There was, however, a great deal of anger in her voice, a _different_ kind of anger, which was troublesome enough that he took a deep breath before he pushed open the door to the green room.

“Finally,” Sammy hissed, stalking away from the fridge and taking the seat that was furthest away from Lily. He leaned towards Crowley as the demon walked past him. “Don’t say a word, mate. She’s had it today.”

“What?” Crowley asked, dropping his voice.

“I don’t know.” Sammy shrugged, one hand turning over and over in mid-air as if he was wafting a thought closer. Eventually he settled for a shrug. “Just… _it._ She’s had it, you know? With today, or this week, or…”

“This entire bloody universe!” Lily finished for him, slamming the fridge door closed with such vigour that Crowley felt a tremor quake beneath his feet. She caught sight of Crowley’s wrinkled brow and smiled tightly. “It’s been a very long day and somebody nicked my beer from the fridge. I just wanted a cool, crisp beer to enjoy with my very best pals before we go on stage. Is that too much to ask, Little Brother, is it?”

“No.” Crowley shook his head, edging his way towards the sofa and perching on the edge of it, wondering exactly how many seconds after revealing his _injury_ it would take for Lily to unleash satan-esque wrath in his direction. “I’m sorry you’ve had a bad day, Lil. Is there anything we can do to help?”

“I just want to play a good show so something’s gone right today.” She sighed, sitting down next to him and taking a swig from a bottle of water. She closed her eyes as she swallowed, presumably lost to a moment of silence for her missing beer.

“Look, I have something to tell you.” Crowley swallowed deeply, then shrugged the sleeve of his jacket back from his hand to reveal his bandage. Lily, however, had taken that moment to erupt into a piercing scream of excitement as she reached for the lapels of his jacket and tugged him into a warm hug.

“I knew he was going to ask! Or did you ask? Was it you? I’m going to cry. Sammy. Sammy! I was right this time! First of all, you owe me a tenner, and chuck us a tissue while you’re at it.” Pulling back from the demon, she shook her hands, balled into little fists, with excitement. And then she caught sight of the glaring white bandage wrapped around Crowley’s hand. She sank, as if all the air had suddenly been squeezed out of her. “Wait, what the fuck is that?”

“ _Hadanaccident_ ,” Crowley mumbled, eyes tracing a line from Lily’s boots to Sammy’s battered Converse, as if there might be some sort of penance found in his downturned, repentant gaze. “I’m sorry, guys, I don’t know if I can…”

Then came a hiccuping sob from his left and Crowley looked up to find Lily flop over with her face hidden behind her hands, ten emerald green nails twinkling back at him. Her shoulders gave a little lurch and then a stray sniff confirmed it: it was worse than Crowley had ever imagined. Anger he could take, irritation he could weather, but _crying_? That was near enough the only emotional response he and Aziraphale hadn’t rehearsed earlier that day.

“Lily,” he said quietly, his good hand reaching out to curl around her shoulder. He felt the hard nub of her collarbone beneath his fingers, smiled to himself as she rocked back towards him, rather than away. He had spent a lot of years pretending not to care when humans jumped away from his touch.

“It’s okay,” she said, voice hitching between words as she clamped one hand around her eyes. While crying in front of the band might not have been off-limits, letting them see definitely was. “I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. I thought it would be Dan, to be honest.”

“Hey!” Dan protested, unsure what exactly he was being accused of but fairly sure offence was there to be taken either way. “Sorry. Sorry, Lily. Let me get you some crisps.”

 _Jesus wept,_ Crowley thought, watching Dan in disbelief as the singer disappeared into a cupboard to procure a sacred packet of sliced and salted potato snacks. _And I thought I was bad at the whole comforting presence thing. When they said Aziraphale was more human than angel maybe they had a point. Do they ever stop thinking about food? Is there any problem that can’t be solved with carbs? How are bloody crisps going to help when…_

“Thanks, Dan.” Lily sniffed tearfully, taking the red packet and tearing it open, shovelling a handful of crisps into her mouth and smiling at the rush of crunchy, salty goodness. “I’m sorry, guys, it’s been such a shit day. One of the cats brought in not one but two frogs overnight, my bike had a puncture, we had two bookings cancelled last minute, and now…”

She trailed off, voice wavering as she looked down at Crowley’s hand. Dan and Sammy followed her eye line, and suddenly Crowley felt like all of three of them might be able to see _through_ his bandage, and his excuse at the same time. As soon as the feeling crept over his shoulder, it passed, and then Lily looked away.

“We all have so much going on, haven’t we? Dan, you’ve got your family. I’ve got the studio and the cats and the…”

“String of hopeless lovers trailing in your wake.”

“Exactly. Little Brother, you’ve got your new life with Zira. And Sammy, you’ve got…” She trailed off then, gesturing vaguely to Sammy’s overall visage before a small shrug suggested that perhaps Sammy’s current state of affairs was something innately unknowable, as if he was a true enigma of a postman.

“I’ve got _plenty_ going on, thank you very much,” Sammy snapped, huffing out a puff of warm air before realising he was supposed to be in comfort-mode. “Anyway, yes, we’re all very busy and grown up and accomplished. Yay for us. Why did we have to break out the emergency crisps?”

Lily ignored him, turning to Crowley and taking his good hand in hers. “You don’t have to make excuses.”

Crowley swallowed, drumming up the last drops in his demonic reservoir that might help him dream up a really good, really believable, really solid lie.

“If you don’t want to play with us any more, just tell us. We’re your family, you don’t have to…”

“I am _not_ lying!” Crowley protested, a little too swiftly and a little too loudly for anybody’s liking, which seemed to have the dual effect of drying up Lily’s tears and tipping her over from sorrowful to indignant. In a flash she reached out and gave the back of Crowley’s right hand a little tap. Nothing hard enough to do any _real_ damage but certainly enough to elicit a reaction. If, in fact, what lay underneath his bandage was any sort of injury at all.

A heartbeat passed.

And then another.

And then Crowley remembered he was supposed to be too injured to play a guitar.

“Ow,” he said. And when he was met with blank faces he said it again. Louder. “Ow!”

Lily growled, standing up and stamping over to the bin, where she hurled her empty crispy packet into its depths with all the rage of somebody who had just rumbled a lie. Or run out of crisps. Or both, in fact. “If you want to quit the band at least have the guts to tell us. Don’t be a dick about it.”

 _Don’t forget the golden rule,_ an irritating little voice that might have belonged to his conscience sing-songed in Crowley’s mind, _no messing with Anthony’s life._ When he spoke his words came out as a desperate jumble, the splutter of a tap bursting to life before changing its mind mid-flow. “I _don’t_ want to quit the band, Lily! I just…one of the dogs saw a squirrel and, you know, my wrist. It got jerked. My wrist got jerked! Who among us hasn’t been jerked too hard?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Dan heaved a world-weary sigh, thumb and index finger pressing against his eyelids as he let Crowley’s misspoken comment die a particularly undignified death. After the moment had passed, he turned to the demon. “Look, are you up to simplifying things or is it a total no-go tonight? We can always ask Clara and-or Bella to fill in, they came in the same time as me. I’m sure they wouldn’t…”

“No! No, I’ll make it work.” Crowley held both hands up in protest, then let his _injured_ hand fall limp, as if the strength of holding it aloft was almost too much. He knew this would be how it started…first Clara and-or Bella would step in temporarily, then the band might like her sound, might thrive on some new blood in the band, and before he knew it Anthony would be cast out in favour of somebody who could, er, actually play the music on their set list. He couldn’t let that happen. When he stepped out of Anthony’s body and went back to meet whatever awaited them on Earth, he planned to leave no trace. No trace at all. Absolutely no trace. Like the entire temporary-body-takeover had never happened. And causing a rift between Anthony and his best friends, and getting him kicked out of his band in one evening didn’t constitute _leaving no trace_.

“You’re so weird lately.” Lily exhaled a fraction more heavily than usual, the universal signal that she wasn’t happy but wasn’t angry enough to utter a full blown huff. She leaned closer to Crowley, narrowing her eyes as she studied his hair, then his eyes, then the rest of his face. “I don’t know what’s going on with you but something…”

With all the divine timing of an entity sent down from the heavens purely to rescue him from the moment of awkwardness, the Den’s manager, Allie, took that moment to poke her head around the door and give the four of them a little wave.

“Five minutes, folks.”

Lily gave him one last gaze of suspicion, then pulled back to reach for her guitar case. Crowley waited until she was out of earshot before letting out a slow, wavering breath.

***

‘ _Four ways to collect what we say and what we save_

_To discard and discover a brand new way’_

“We’re Lucifer and the Guys, and this is Hell.”

Lily curled one hand around the microphone stand and growled the band’s greeting out to the waiting crowd, who had been beckoned in closer at the sound of the band performing a customary few strums and chords to fine tune their instruments before the show began. For his part, Crowley stared down at his guitar in concentration while he held a plectrum messily between his bandaged fingers, miming the odd strum and hoping the background chatter covered for the fact he hadn’t yet made contact with the strings.

 _There’s still time,_ he thought, eyes trained firmly on the six silver strings that ran the length of his guitar, as if he might find some sort of mantra for teleportation carved into the frets of the instrument. An idea crept fully-formed into his mind then, softly-spoken and sweet but so all-encompassing it blotted out the residual sound of a hundred happy people waiting impatiently for London’s twenty third most popular cover band to begin.

 _Just one little miracle_ , it whispered, voice dripping with temptation, sounding as close as if its tongue was curled deep in his ear. _You’ll be so far away from here, from this crowd of strangers waiting to watch you fail, from your friends who don’t even trust a word you say. You know what to do. We’ve missed you so. Demon. Brother. One little miracle and you’ll be…_

“Crowley!”

Crowley shook his head, dispersed the black cloud that had gathered, smog-like, around him, and then everything came roaring into focus.

The fug of hot air and beer breath.

The heartbeat of Sammy pounding the drums behind him.

The twirling palette of green, from lime to midnight, as Lily swept one arm behind her and her tasselled jacket billowed out in an arc of colour.

The sight of Aziraphale staring at him in absolute disbelief, lips parted in shock, fingers gripping his twin gins so tightly it was a wonder the plastic cups didn’t crumple under his mighty grip.

“Do something!” Dan’s voice came again, a thin hiss almost lost under Lily’s voice as she sang the first song in their set, as easily and joyously as if a third of her supporting music wasn’t completely missing. From the other side of the stage, Dan strummed his bass like somebody who was irritatingly well-prepared, eyes wide as he nodded violently at Crowley as if that might somehow imprint the knowledge of how to play guitar in his brain.

But there was no way to imprint the knowledge of how to play guitar in his brain, was there? Not unless he wanted to give into that dark, creeping voice that had slid into his mind a moment before. No, there was only one thing for it. If a miraculous peacing out of existence was out of the question, Crowley was going to have to confront the weight of his lies head on. The only way out, he realised, was through.

The demon tentatively pressed one finger against the strings of his guitar, felt six little bites of pressure against his skin. _So far, so good_ , he praised himself, wondering if perhaps the melody to White Wedding might just work in this instance. He considered it for a moment, decided it was best not to risk it. If he was responsible for any more low-level destruction of their set he wouldn’t have to worry about facing Gabriel’s wrath; he was fairly sure Lily would already have taken care of matters.

Urging up all the confidence he could muster, Crowley relaxed his shoulders, looked out at the sea of confused faces staring up at him, and played a combination of six notes that weren’t friends, or even acquaintances. Mortal enemies might have been a more accurate description. Lily stumbled over her lyric, then looked over her shoulder and locked eyes with Crowley, one hand miming a sharp arc across her neck in a motion that Crowley couldn’t quite decipher but was fairly sure called for his musical retirement.

Deciding something was better than nothing, but that silence was clearly better than whatever sound he had just created, he opted to tap out a cheery rhythm against his guitar while he looked down at Aziraphale for comfort.

 _What are you doing?!_ the angel mouthed from the front row, eyebrows rising so high they were well on their way to being raptured.

Crowley shrugged, because he didn’t know what he was doing but he did now know that lying was bad. Particularly if it culminated in you standing on a stage in somebody else’s body while your friends, and the entirety of the audience, stared at you like you’d just slipped into your serpentine-form right there on stage.

 _Never ends well when I’m on stage_ , Crowley mused, as he let the beat of the song take him and rocked gently from foot to foot, nodding his head in time the music. _You’d think I’d have learned after the last time._

***

_‘When she walks, the revolution’s coming_

_In her hips, there’s revolution_

_When she talks, I hear the revolution’_

Lily was flushed scarlet with murderous fury. Dan was bewildered. Aziraphale had spent most of the set drowning his panic by nursing drinks that Crowley suspected were more gin than mixer. Mick looked concerned, sweetly clapping his hands together whenever Crowley attempted to play a chord. Crowley didn’t know what Sammy’s emotional state was as he was too scared to turn around but he was pretty sure Sammy had a barrage of lovingly mocking jokes locked and loaded for the second their set ended.

There was one person, however, who seemed non-plussed by Crowley’s very public failure, even going so far as to cheer on every missed note or shuffling dance move he attempted as if it might be a nuanced piece of performance art. Luci was there, drink in hand, crescent-moon smile lighting up their face as they danced on beat and beamed at Crowley as if he was their own flesh and blood headlining Glastonbury. It hurt, as much as it healed, watching this incarnation of Lucifer encourage him without judgement or expectation, simply loving him as he did his best, even if his best wasn’t particularly inspiring.

 _I miss you,_ the demon thought, daring to take a step closer towards the front of the stage as Lily reached the chorus of their next song, a purred anthem of revolution and liberation. _I wish you could have known this world, this freedom. I wish you never had to know whatever darkness Gabriel sent you to. You would have loved this._ He looked up at Luci, risked a little smile. _You always made me feel good enough, like nothing about me was missing. I can’t wait to see you again, Lucifer._ He glanced at Raphael, almost barked a laugh at the smile on the man’s face, that fond bemusement about the display of ineptitude he was witnessing. _I can’t wait to see you both, to bring you back together. I will find you, I swear to you._

***

_‘Maybe I can save the world_

_For every boy and every girl._

_Take me back, take me back, take me back_

_To the place where we began’_

“Thanks for coming out tonight, guys. Everybody raise a glass to our guitarist who’s soldiering on as best he can despite a harrowing jerking injury. Cut him a bit of slack, eh? He’ll be right as rain next time. Now, let’s sing about the end of the world.” Lily paused to take a swig from her water bottle and shot Crowley a tight smile that softened before he even had a chance to reciprocate. His desperate fumblings weren’t tuneful, they weren’t pretty, but he was _there_ and he was trying, bandage and all, and maybe that was enough.

As the band played on, Crowley did his best to make sure his plectrum occasionally connected with the strings of his guitar in a way that didn’t cause the audience’s ears to short-circuit (Aziraphale would tell him later on that the crowd’s main concern was which of the rumours about his injury was true: that he got kicked in the hand by a cow or that he’s got his hand trapped between park railings and had to be cut out by firemen. Clara and Bella had no intention of coming clean about which of them started which rumour). Lily sang out about a desire to save the world from evil boys and dangerous girls, and Crowley found himself looking at each of Anthony’s bandmates in turn and wondering what sort of a role they’d played on Earth, in the old world. Which part of Aziraphale’s subconscious had brought them there? Or had he brought them there at all? Did they belong to Earth? Were they dreamed up in that split second when he had breathed life into that place, or had the angel known them before, had he held the echo of some encounter with them deep in his memory without even knowing it? Was there something about Dan’s lanky frame and warm steadiness that was familiar? Was the faux-competitive bickering that formed the baseline of Sammy and Lily’s friendship something he’d heard for himself in another life? Or was it all new, were _they_ all new? He didn’t know. And maybe he never would. Maybe there were a lot of questions about Aziraphale’s world the two of them might never understand. Perhaps it was like Raphael had told him one day in the stars: _what creator ever truly knows their creation, little one?_

The demon’s reverie was cut short by a crack that sounded just behind him, as close as if Sammy had taken that moment to slam a fist clean through his drum kit. He looked behind him, was vaguely aware that Lily had stopped singing, that Dan had stopped playing, but Sammy sat there as confused and silent as the rest of them.

Another sound. A bang. A deep boom like a cannonball ripping through the air. Members of the crowd ducked, others looked around desperately, and Crowley heard Aziraphale calling his name. He turned to find the angel climbing the steps up to the stage, rushed to him and reached out for his hand.

“What’s happening, Crowley?”

He heard Aziraphale speak, his voice small and afraid, and then everything went dark.

***

Crowley opened his eyes and blinked.

Twice.

Three times.

He waited for the world around him to come into focus, which it did, in its own sweet time.

He was still holding Aziraphale’s hand, standing on the pavement in front of where the Devil’s Den stood. Or where the Devil’s Den had stood. Gone was the nondescript red door, the grinning banner of skulls that ran along the ragged black awning. Even the sign, _Welcome to the Devil’s Den,_ scrawled in white jagged lettering against a faded black background was gone. In its place was a row of frosted windows, bordered by neat red and white brick tiling, a facade as cheery as it was soulless. A sign swung above the mahogany wood double doors: _The Red Lion._

Crowley felt Aziraphale’s fingers tighten around his, heard the angel heave out a breath as if he had just come back to himself. He looked around desperately, blue eyes wide and disbelieving as he turned to look over one shoulder, and then the other, as if perhaps they’d strayed onto the wrong side of the street and the Den might still be standing behind them.

“It’s…gone,” the angel whispered, his other hand gripping Crowley’s forearm as he shuffled closer to the demon. “It was right there and now…”

“I know, angel,” Crowley said plainly, because in that moment he wasn’t sure what else he could possibly say. A minute ticked by, during which the angel and demon stood stock-still, staring at the place where the Den had been just moments before. “Did you…did you _feel_ anything?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to reply but fell silent when the door of the Red Lion swung open and a group of revellers swaggered out onto the pavement, unravelling themselves from each other as they split off from one tangled mass into six smiling, familiar faces.

“There you are, darlings!” Luci cried, pacing forward to press a hand to Aziraphale’s chest. “We thought you two might have slunk off back to your love nest without saying goodbye again.”

“Shit, that’s my bus. Safe journey home, chaps.” Dan spoke next, raising a hand in goodbye as he broke into a jog to race for the bus that pulled in at the stop further down the street. “See you next week?”

“Don’t be late next time or chips are on you!” Lily called, cupping her hands around her mouth like a makeshift megaphone.

“Did someone say chips?” Mick patted his stomach, smile widening at the thought of a late night snack of chips and cheese and more mayonnaise than any drunken pub-goer should be able to withstand. “Raph, Luci, are you coming? Sammy?”

Sammy shook his head, stifling a yawn and barely looking up as he flicked through his messages. “Not tonight, mate. Early start tomorrow. See you lot next week.”

Mick turned to Crowley and Aziraphale, gave them a quick glance up and down before letting loose a chuckle that was so warm and reassuring that Crowley had to swallow a lump in his throat. “Well, don’t just stand there, are you coming for chips? What’s got into you two? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good afternoon all! How are you all doing? I hope you and your loved ones are all keeping well. Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this one!
> 
> In case anyone was curious about the song lyrics that were quoted as part of the Lucifer and the Guys' set, all the songs are up on the Spotify playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cg2M5HKvnoTPYStsMT0c6) and are also listed below:
> 
> Hell - Tegan and Sara  
> Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill  
> X - Poppy
> 
> Thank you so much for your comments on the last chapter, as always I loved hearing your thoughts *and*, of course, your best meals from the last week 😂. Honestly, you have no idea how many times I've screeched about how good everything sounds that you tell me about 🤤. Please never stop telling me what you've all been enjoying!
> 
> For me, the best thing I ate in the last week was an afternoon tea we put together last weekend. Neither of us have had one since lockdown started so we decided to make our own at home - sandwiches, mini cupcakes, scones, the works. Ohhh okay - one other question for this week: are you cream first or jam first? I'm from the West Country so it's incredibly important that I know your cream tea opinions 😂.
> 
> Anyway, back to the chapter. Things are afoot! I wanted to thank you all again for sticking with me when things slowed down a bit during lockdown, I know we're all still feeling unsettled about everything that's going on in the world but I'm finding more time to write now so I'm starting to find my way back to the plot. I really appreciate you all still being here after things slowed down for the last few months <3.
> 
> I am actually taking a week off next week to celebrate my mum's birthday and get stuck into a few books I've been wanting to read but I'll be back on the 26th, where we'll be finding out what the next phase of the story has in store!
> 
> Lots of love and thank you all for being so wonderful and supportive 💕


	34. The Candle Feeds the Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s not ours as long as it belongs to somebody else.”

**June. Z. Fell and Co., Soho.**

Aziraphale had gripped Crowley’s hand so hard as they had walked through Soho’s streets that the demon had to turn his head to the side and wince against the squeeze of pain. He didn’t mention it, didn’t mention the grim look on the angel’s face either, knew that Aziraphale’s worries were too potent to be lightened with a joke. After they had come around the other night to find the Devil’s Den had been erased in a split second, replaced with a soulless gastro pub that was the watering hole equivalent of dry toast, Aziraphale had been plagued with fear for his bookshop. Well, Zira’s bookshop, but his worries still stood.

The shop was the only tangible possession he had to tether him to his past and even that wasn’t _really_ his shop, not after the fire, but the thought of losing the shop completely, that it might just disappear in the blink of an eye, had left the angel pacing the flat during long and sleepless nights. It felt rather like it had in the old days, when he would be forced to entertain himself during one of Crowley’s decade-long naps; the only difference being that now he existed in a human corporation the knock-on effect of not sleeping was bone-shattering exhaustion that left him fuzzy-headed and bleary-eyed.

“I can go and check,” Crowley had offered one morning, spooning pineapple into his mouth as he looked cautiously at the angel. He’d taken quite a liking to pineapple in recent weeks, found it an extraordinary example of heaven’s piousness that they had dreamed up a tasty fruit that would near enough eat you back if you consumed too much of it. Bowl emptied and tongue stinging with the fruity tang, he watched as emotions skittered across Aziraphale’s face. _Temptation. Panic. Fear. Reluctance._

Eventually the angel had shaken his head. “No. No, not yet. I don’t want to…I’m not ready to know if it’s…”

He had trailed off then, though they both knew the words that were left unspoken.

_I’m not ready to know if it’s gone._

Days had ticked by, though, and Aziraphale had grown so tired, so distracted by thoughts of the shop, which had become a sort of Schrodinger’s bookshop, that Crowley had gently coaxed him into accompanying him to Soho.

“It will still be there,” he had promised, patting Aziraphale reassuringly on the hand as they’d walked from Anthony’s flat across Westminster Bridge, skirting St James’s Park (thankfully still in tact) and making their way up to Soho. Aziraphale had let out a dubious _harrumph_ and pressed his lips together so tightly they were nothing more than a thin white line.

He had been right though, as he sometimes was, and the gleaming twin pillars of Z. Fell and Co. came proudly into view as they rounded the corner of Greek Street. By Crowley’s side, Aziraphale uttered a little gasp of delight and broke into a run, tugging the demon along behind him as he charged towards the shop and placed one hand gently against the window.

“They didn’t take it,” Aziraphale said, looking across at Crowley with a beaming smile on his face. “It’s still here.”

“Of course it is.” Crowley grinned, taking the keys from the angel’s pocket and unlocking the door. “As if it would ever leave without you.”

Aziraphale murmured to himself as they stepped inside, or perhaps it was a murmured apology to the shop for leaving it unattended for so many days, Crowley couldn’t quite be sure. The angel paced a wide circle around the shop floor, running his fingers along the smooth shelves and closing his eyes in relief.

“It’s all here,” he breathed, content that every alcove, every book, every eye-catching little trinket was safe and sound and ready to greet the public just as soon as Aziraphale handed control of his current corporation back to Zira. He had stuck to his pledge of getting everything ready for the grand re-opening, filling the last of the shelves and even going so far as to polish the floorboards, though nobody but he and Crowley and Barnaby and Raphael had stepped on them. It was ready. Almost ready, the angel conceded, because when it came to the bookshop there was _always_ work to do. He turned to look back at Crowley. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

“Hmm?” the demon asked, only half-listening as he pulled a battered copy of LSD Orgy off of a shelf. He raised his eyebrows at the cover, then quickly replaced it before Aziraphale could single it out as _woefully out of keeping with our preferred inventory_. _Must have been Anthony’s handiwork,_ the demon decided, smiling.

“Do you think he’ll like it?” Aziraphale asked again, taking Crowley’s hand and leading him into the back room, where the two of them flopped down on the new sofa and winced at the lack of give in the springs. They’d been doing their best to break it in but it wasn’t quite there yet. A few more afternoons with the curtains closed and it might just be ready. “Zira, I mean. Do you think he’ll like the way I’ve finished the shop?”

The concern on his face was so absolute that Crowley couldn’t help but reach out and stroke the back of his thumb slowly down the length of the angel’s cheek. He nodded, leaned across to meet the angel’s lips with his, then nodded again. “He’s going to love it, angel. He’ll love it so much he’ll be sure only he could have put together such a perfect bookshop.”

“Oh, thank you.” Aziraphale chuckled, looking down modestly. Then he slapped one hand against his thigh and grinned hopefully. “Tea and biscuits? I need a little pick me up after all that fretting.”

“Anyone would think you’d be used to all the fretting after six thousand years of it.”

No sooner had the last word left his mouth than Crowley ducked, narrowly avoiding the cushion Aziraphale had slung in his direction.

***

“It’s time to stop hiding.” Aziraphale sighed, wriggling to get comfortable on the sofa as he brought his teacup to his lips. Everything was _almost_ right but the sofa wasn’t quite comfortable enough, the blanket he rested his hand against on the arm of the sofa wasn’t quite soft enough, and even the replacement angel wing mug Crowley sourced for him online wasn’t quite right. It was close enough, an almost exact copy, but those little niggles of discomfort just reinforced that his new world wasn’t quite his. Not yet. Not until a few loose ends had been wrapped up. A few loose ends that involved the possible offing of a meddlesome purple-eyed archangel, the complete dissolution of his and Crowley’s tenure with heaven and hell (though he wasn’t _quite_ sure whether he even belonged to heaven any more and it wasn’t as if they were answering his calls), and the untethering of his world from the old world before everything, well, _poofed_ out of existence.

Crowley didn’t speak, just watched the angel carefully with those distinctly human eyes that were a little less golden than the real deal (another reminder that they couldn’t truly be themselves until they dealt with their rather pressing unfinished business), and gave him a little nod of encouragement.

“It was okay before, wasn’t it, to talk about going back as some sort of abstract adventure that lay in the future? We could wait a while, just lay low, and that was easy. Going about our lives, eating brunch, spending too much money on house plants, walks in the park. As if we live here, as if we _belong_ here.”

“We do belong here,” Crowley cut in then, his fingers creeping up to Aziraphale’s knee and pressing against the smooth weave of his trousers. “You made this world for us. We belong here more than anybody.”

“Not yet.” Aziraphale shook his head sadly, tapped one hand against the solid base of the sofa as if that would reinforce his point. “It’s not ours as long as it belongs to somebody else. When we aren’t bound to heaven or hell, or to the Earth or the Almighty or anything else, that’s when this will be ours.”

The angel and demon fell silent, lost to the words unsaid as they sipped their drinks and absent-mindedly ate more biscuits than they’d intended to, as if such rapid thought-processing required a little extra fuel. And who was to say it didn’t?

Aziraphale wondered what it would be like to exchange the new world for the old one, realised that more questions than he thought lay unanswered in his mind. That was the price he paid for pushing away inquisitive thoughts, for burying them under layers of day-to-day minutiae until so many of them had piled up that they were strong enough to fight their way to the surface, to demand answers that he had no idea how to give.

_How will it feel to make our way back to Earth? How will we even find it? We think we know how, we think it’s instinctive, like following an invisible thread through the universe, but what if we get lost in the darkness? What if we lose each other? What if we leave a part of ourselves here? Anthony and Zira, what will they make of the half-world we’re leaving behind? Will they notice the changes, the disappearance of the Devil’s Den, or will they be like the others and forget it had ever existed? Will they forget about Lucifer and the Guys, be content in the knowledge that the four of them are nothing but old drinking buddies whose friendship has stayed the course of time? And what of the Earth, what will be waiting for us when we arrive? Where will we go? To Crowley’s flat, to the Love Nest, to the bookshop? Will any of it still be standing? Did I just create a copy of the bookshop here or did I bring the bookshop with me from Earth? Will Gabriel know the second we arrive? Will we be spotted, or can we hide for just a little bit longer? What will we even be: spirits, a wisp of existence, two souls halfway between dead and alive? What’s left of us there, is there anything at all or is everything that remains of us here, now, in these bodies we’ll leave behind for Anthony and Zira?_

Question after question arrived like a revolving door of children fighting for his attention, each one shouting louder than the last, reaching out and tugging at him until Aziraphale felt as though they might suffocate him under the weight of all the things he didn’t understand. He needed to know, he needed to know _something_ before risking it all, and there was only one source of knowledge Aziraphale could trust. If only he could reach them.

 _Then ask,_ a voice whispered in the angel’s mind, soft and seductive like warm honey, like something wiser than him, like something that knew all of the answers. _You know what to do, Principality Aziraphale, all you need to do is ask._

“What are you doing?” Crowley asked, snapping out of his own daydream as Aziraphale handed him his empty cup and pushed up off of the sofa, kneeling down on the floor and placing his palms on the wood again and again until he seemed to find a spot that pleased him, a spot that meant something. The angel ignored him, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly and steadily as if he was centring himself in preparation for something he knew would take all of his concentration.

A moment later, the demon asked again, his voice rumbling with prickling accusation as he watched Aziraphale’s lips begin to move. “Aziraphale. What are you doing?”

“I need to know,” the angel said plainly, gaze trained on the stretch of floorboards he was kneeling over, as if he was in a trance. His eyes narrowed, as if he was trying and failing to accomplish something of utmost importance, and it was only when Crowley heard him murmur one word that he realised what it was the angel was trying to do. “Raphael…”

“No!” the demon cried, springing off of the sofa and tearing the angel’s hand away from the floor. He pulled Aziraphale’s other hand free from the ground and reached out to steady him as he toppled backwards, caught off balance by Crowley’s sudden interference. The angel rocked back against the base of the sofa, hiding his face in both hands as he caught his breath and fought back tears. Crowley raised his voice, lunging closer to the angel and staring at him with hard eyes. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at? What are you trying to do, get us caught? All of this hiding for you to blow it in a second? What were you trying to do, Aziraphale? Tell me!”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale mumbled, shuddering as the fog in his mind dissipated as suddenly and shockingly as it had arrived. He could think clearly then, realised the weight of what he had been trying to do. A sob escaped his lips and he reached for Crowley, gripping onto the demon’s shirt sleeves and burying his face against his chest. “I’m sorry, Crowley. I don’t know what happened to me. The portal, I just…my mind, it was as if…as if something told me I had to make contact with them.”

For a second Crowley became rigid, frozen as he remembered the dark whisper in his mind that had told him to perform a miracle when he was standing on stage at the Devil’s Den, on the last night it had existed. He had almost forgotten the way it had breathed temptations into his mind but then it had come for Aziraphale, and Crowley had no intention of ever letting that darkness touch his angel.

 _They’re trying to tempt us out_ , he realised, tongue caught between his teeth as he stared down at the floorboards Aziraphale had been touching so reverently a moment before. _What would have happened if he’d managed to recreate the portal?_ Crowley wondered, wrapping protective arms around the angel and holding him close, as if perhaps the depth of his love might form a shield that evil and hatred and corruption could never erode.

They sat there, on the floor of the bookshop, limbs entwined as Aziraphale steadied his breathing and Crowley imagined a thousand ways he would tear hell apart if they made a single attempt to manipulate Aziraphale again. Eventually, the demon peppered kisses across the angel’s forehead and then spoke, clambering to his feet and pulling Aziraphale up behind him.

“Come with me. We need to escape, find somewhere we can breathe for a while.”

***

**Hampstead Heath, London.**

“Shinrin-yoku.” Aziraphale sighed contentedly, letting the words fall from his lips as easily as a breath. They tumbled into the peaceful air and drifted above the angel and demon for a moment before they were lost to the soft breeze that blew through the trees.

“You think we have the Japanese to thank for everything.” Crowley pursed his lips, letting his head fall to the side as he searched Aziraphale’s face for a hint of teasing. He found it in the lift on either side of the angel’s lips. “Shinrin-yoku, indeed, as if I didn’t invent forest bathing six thousand years before they did. Always loved a good forest bathe, me. There’s no answer you can’t find in the trees. Or the stars. One or the other.”

“Lucky the trees aren’t a million miles skyward, isn’t it?” Aziraphale laughed, wondered idly how it would feel to step back into a celestial corporation (if such a thing might be waiting for him on Earth), and journey to the stars as easily as they had journeyed to the forest that afternoon.

“Just like all my best ideas, it took a few millennia for it to catch on. The humans got there eventually.”

“Like they always do.” Aziraphale chuckled fondly, staring up at the sky and marvelling at the slashes of sunlight that cut their way through the trees, forcing their way through the canopy of leaves to bathe the forest floor in streaks of light. It was soft, the blanket of fallen leaves and moss and pine needles that they lay on, fingers entwined between them, legs splayed out.

It was its own kind of escape, laying there beneath the trees in the sunshine, letting the smell of the grass fill each breath as their chests rose and fell in such perfect rhythm that it was almost startling how in sync two separate entities could be. Aziraphale’s thoughts turned to Crowley, and to the past, as he imagined all the times the demon had hidden away in the forests, the only other place he had ever felt at home. He knew the trees didn’t speak, didn’t really whisper answers to the millions of questions humanity asked them, but they didn’t need to. All they needed to do was listen, to stand there, silent and tall, while humans and an angel and a demon alike poured out their hearts and shared their secrets in place where they felt safe. The answers would come to them, all of them, in time, and such was the magic of the trees and the wind. They were a shelter, not an oracle, a place where you could answer your own mysteries and step back into the world, changed somehow. It was true, then, when Crowley had said that nobody is ever truly the same person after they leave the forest.

“Thank you for bringing me here.” Aziraphale brushed his fingers up and down the length of Crowley’s palm, letting them linger at his fingertips before they began their journey again. When he demon didn’t reply he closed his eyes, letting the silence hang there as a comfort. It was just the two of them, together, with nothing but the trees to listen in.

“We’re running out of time,” the demon said eventually, voice halting as if he was reluctant to say the words aloud, though he knew they had remained unsaid for too long already.

There was a pause before Aziraphale spoke, and a brief exhale of resignation. “I know. If I’m honest, Crowley, I’m…I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going to be waiting for us when we get back, I don’t know if I even want to know. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do, I thought… Back in the bookshop, I thought if I could speak to Raphael, that’s why I…”

“Ignore it.” Crowley’s voice was harsher than he had intended and Aziraphale turned to him with a puzzled expression. He caught the angel’s concern, shaking his head as he softened. “It tried to tempt me too. The voice. I know what happened back there. If you hear it again, push it away. Promise me, Aziraphale. It’s trying to force us to show ourselves. It’s… I don’t know, I think Gabriel might be looking further afield for help in finding us.”

“What?” Aziraphale propped himself up on both elbows, frowning down at Crowley as he watched the demon wrestle with something unspoken. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

Crowley tripped over his words, before letting out a little growl and shaking his head. He looked up at the sky, paused until it seemed he’d found an answer to his question, and then he spoke again. “I know what they’re doing, angel. It started the other night when we were at the Den. I heard it, the voice, whispering in my ear about miracles. I might have fallen for it too, if I hadn’t been expecting it. I’ve been waiting for it. I knew if they tried to find me they would send it. It senses me, I know it does, wherever I go. It can travel beyond worlds, so it seems. I don’t know if it can _see_ me, I think perhaps if it could we would already be gone, but it senses me and now it’s sensed you too. You have to shut it out, angel. It creeps up on you, it tricks you into believing they’re your own thoughts. It’s…destructive, it’s evil.”

“The shadow.” Aziraphale sucked in a breath, his fingers curling around Crowley’s knee as he sat up, ignoring the twinge of a stray twig digging into the underside of his calf. “The shadow that stalked you in hell, like you told me before. You think it’s searching for us?”

The demon nodded. “It can’t find us, I don’t think, but it’s trying to tempt us into slipping up.”

“And you think Gabriel is working with…it?”

“No.” Crowley laughed, though there was little humour to be found in the sound. “No, I don’t think our favourite archangel has the stomach for it. It would seem, though, that heaven and hell might finally be working together. A common enemy, perhaps. Maybe hell are trying to settle all of their debts before the end. Or the beginning, if they win, of course.”

“As if there are going to be any winners by the time they’ve finished with each other.” It was Aziraphale’s turn to laugh then, and he followed it up with a pause before he continued speaking, his voice low with uncertainty. “How are we going to get back unnoticed, Crowley? Won’t they…won’t they sense us as soon as we set foot back on Earth?”

Crowley reached out for Aziraphale’s hand, wrapped his fingers around the base of the angel’s thumb to haul himself up. “I know, I’ve been thinking that too. What if we…what if we can get to Raphael before they find us? They’ll protect us, I know they will.”

“But how do we _do_ that, Crowley? How do we find Raphael before Gabriel finds us? And how do we keep the humans safe? The humans here, I mean. Mick and Raphael and Luci and the others? You’ve seen what’s happening already, this place is starting to fall apart. It’s…regressing somehow. Mick forgot himself, didn’t he? You saw it too. How do we keep them safe if we aren’t even here to watch over them? What if something…happens?”

The precise nature of what exactly might _happen_ wasn’t something Aziraphale cared to speak aloud, though he had spent untold hours imagining all the unpleasant ways his world could crash and burn in his absence, what heaven and hell’s fight to the bitter end might do to the safe haven he had created. It had already begun, as they had seen again and again in recent days: the strange storms with their purple clouds and white streaks of lightning; the great chasms that stretched down the length of London’s pavements; the disappearance of the Den. What else would be distorted and broken and forgotten while they searched for answers even the trees couldn’t inspire?

There was time, Crowley knew, for plans to be made. Late nights weighing up their options, considering impossible odds, knowing that every carefully laid ambition would likely be thrown into oblivion the moment they left the new world for the old. Yes, there would be time enough for plans. In that moment, though, the demon knew there was only one thing on both of their minds. “One more walk into certain death?”

“They haven’t killed us yet,” Aziraphale mused hopefully, pulling up a stray leaf and holding it out and admiring it as if it was a precious work of art. In that moment the demon had never loved him more. That sweet, optimistic angel who truly believed in the good of the world, despite every cruelty existence had shown him.

“Fourth time’s the charm, eh? What’s this, our third walk into certain death? Maybe we will live to tell the tale of hope vanquishing hate after all.”

Hope. It was something he had never lost, not even in those moments when hope had felt like a fool’s endeavour. And so Aziraphale held hope in his heart once more, as he leaned his head against Crowley’s neck and felt his trembling fingers grow still. “Let’s just stay like this a little while longer, my love. Just you and me and the trees.”

And so an angel and a demon sat beneath the trees, hand in hand and peacefully silent, letting the dappled sunlight turn to dusk, to sunset, and then to darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi folks! I'm back :D. I had a lovely break last week for my mum's birthday (thank you for the well wishes, she had a great day!) but it's great to be back writing and posting again.
> 
> We've had a bit of a tone shift as you might have noticed, so things are gearing up for the end of Part III. As predicted, I have very much not succeeded in wrangling this beast into three parts so, yes, there's going to be a Part IV. There's just too much left to cram into this part and I want to give the conclusion of the story room to breathe. There's a lot left to cover in this race to save the new world!
> 
> There are five (I think) chapters left in this part and then we'll be moving into Part IV, which I'm almost definitely sure will be the last part of the main IY story, though there will be an ongoing Part V for 'so what happens after the end?' stories (I have a backlog already :D) for those characters who are still chilling in existence - sorry, that's purposefully vague, forgive me. I have most of Part IV plotted out, including the beginning and end, so praise be for that, there's just a small chunk in the middle which is just ??????? in my notes so it'll be fun letting that part of the story come to me, probably at a really inconvenient time when I'm in the shower or driving.
> 
> Anyway! I hope you enjoyed today's chapter and if you recognise the title but can't quite place it, it's a line from Hall and Oates' 'You Make My Dreams Come True' *but* there's a gorgeous cover that I picked for this week's chapter song, and if you don't follow the IY Spotify playlist you can find the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbmwzTjoHWU It's really lovely! I love how a different arrangement can really bring out beautiful lyrics that I think get really hidden in the original (which is also a banger).
> 
> I'll be back next week with a chapter that involves our celestials going to a party! How social of them. Can't relate in 2020 😂.
> 
> I hope you're all very well and have had a brill two weeks...aaaaand please tell me about the best food you had in the last fortnight :D. Lots of love, I missed you all! <3


	35. The Rose and the Thorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “After all, what’s the point of having all the time in the world if you don’t cause a little havoc?”

**June. Notting Hill, London.**

“This is a _terrible_ idea,” Aziraphale hissed, forcing a smile at the immaculately-presented concierge who greeted the couple with a polite nod. The angel and demon stayed silent as they hurried through the lobby, their shoes clicking across the glossy marble over the sound of smooth jazz that was softly playing to welcome residents and their guests home.

The moment the lift doors slid closed behind them, Crowley turned to the angel, easing his sunglasses up into his hair as he checked his reflection in the mirrored panels. “Of course it’s a terrible idea. All of our ideas are terrible, angel. It’s been six thousand years, you should be used to it by now.”

“Why are we here, Crowley?” Aziraphale sighed, letting the sound out heavily and deliberately, as if he was an irritated balloon with a slow puncture. “What are we even trying to achieve?”

Crowley pressed his lips together, rolling his shoulders back in a desperate shrug as he ran a hand through his hair until it was the perfect amount of dishevelled. It had been far too neat and had been troubling him since the moment they’d left Anthony’s flat. Aziraphale had insisted on wrangling it with one of Zira’s pale tortoiseshell combs that he’d taken a great liking to, particularly now his hair actually required regular maintenance to remain angelically bouncy. The angel watched Crowley muss his hair and gave him a pointed look that the demon didn’t have the emotional capacity to try and decipher in that particular moment.

If the demon was honest, he was a little nervous about that evening’s event, which was precisely why he was spending the skyward journey to the penthouse curating the perfect aesthetic of effortless cool. If he couldn’t feel relaxed he could at least _look_ the part. That was the idea, at least. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that left him feeling vaguely queasy about the impending party; it might have been the fact he’d skipped lunch that afternoon in favour of an extra twenty minutes in the park with Barnaby, or it could have had something to do with the fear that their plan (which was, admittedly, scraping the barrel on the scale of genius to ghastly) might actually work. And if it did? Well, that was a bridge he had no idea how they were going to cross. Even worse, what if it didn’t?

“How did we even dream this charade up? What are we expecting? That Raphael is going to give us a wink and beam us up to heaven? That our pal, the _actual_ Archangel Raphael has been hiding out here the entire time? Oh, and I’m sure Lucifer, the _actual_ Lucifer, has been knocking around in Luci’s cranial recesses the whole time, just, you know, keeping themselves to themselves like they’re so famous for. The end of the world, no, the end of the _worlds_ , plural, is rocketing towards us like a…like a runaway train and we’re gallivanting off to a cocktail party under the charade of _research_? What in heaven’s name are we playing at? It bears repeating, Crowley, this is a _terrible_ idea.” Dissatisfied with Crowley’s lack of reply, Aziraphale decided to fill the silence with babbled fears that escalated in pitch until the lift doors mercifully opened and spat them into the grandest hallway they had stood in since waking up in the new world.

“Aziraphale, can you just…” Crowley trailed off, taking a faltering step over the threshold and looking down at the tiles beneath his feet that were so pristine he felt compelled to whisper an apology for treading on them. “Look at this place. What do they _do_ in this world to be so inexplicably loaded, do you even know?”

“Something…pretentious and well-paid. Artists? Something to do with…galleries. I don’t know, Crowley, I didn’t really have time for specifics, did I?” Aziraphale gazed up at the heavy chandelier that hung from the high ceiling, spotted the gold orb that adorned the centre of the display, surrounded by twinkling slices of crystal that might have lit the sky like the stars, orbiting and bowing to the bright, golden sun. “Good lord, even I think this is a bit much.”

***

“Oh, don’t you two look like the most perfect pair of paramours?” Luci reached out and curled their hands around Crowley and Aziraphale’s entwined fingers, their face creasing into a smile so bright their excitement at the angel and demon’s arrival was palpable.

Luci let go of the couple’s hands and Crowley noticed the grey smear of pencil graphite their touch left behind. The demon had come to recognise it as their calling card, the silver sheen of their fingertips, as if they had spent so many hours gripping a pencil between their fingers that it was a permanent badge of honour. They were dressed in a long, sky blue dress that swept over the ground as they moved; billowing sleeves fanned out as they gesticulated wildly, light enough to catch the air with every movement.

“Come on, be my excuse to escape from Raphael’s awful colleagues. Let me show you why our bank balance is crying.” They smiled, sliding one hand through the crook in Aziraphale’s elbow and the other through Crowley’s, and as they guided them through the hallway and away from the raucous laughter of the party, the demon smiled down at the heavy, silver Doc Martens Luci was wearing, the toes of which were peeking out from underneath their dress with every step they took.

“My sanctuary. Or my prison. It depends on the day.” Luci tugged them into a dark room and dropped their arms, clicking the light on and stepping back to take in their reaction.

Crowley felt his lips twitch into a smile at the familiarity of Luci’s studio, as if it was a room he’d stepped into time and time again, and in a way he had. He swallowed tightly, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of turpentine and canvas, savouring the rush of memories it brought back, a hundred stories of the wild souls he had befriended over the centuries. He took a step further into the room and smiled at the balled up sheets of paper stacked up atop the overflowing bin. There was something of Da Vinci’s inspired chaos in Luci’s string of half-finished projects: the abandoned canvases, the sketches that were smudged in their frantic rush to free new ideas from their crowded mind. Taking another step and then another, he paused at a gallery wall of pieces by artists old and new, undiscovered and rediscovered, those who had faded into obscurity and those that hung in every studio in every city in the world. It was as close to looking at the globe’s entire art history as you might find on a single wall, as if the first thing Luci had needed to do after the renovation was complete was assemble their love letter to artists the world over.

Crowley smiled to himself, remembered this was just one room on a tour of the penthouse, though he could have spent the rest of the evening combing through Luci’s work and searching every painting, every sketch, every raw line of poetry for something of Lucifer. Just a hint, a clue, that maybe they were in there, somehow, twinned with a human corporation like he and Aziraphale had been.

He turned to find Aziraphale giving him a sharp little wave as he caught his eye, remembered his promise not to force the angel into staying any longer than was necessary, lest their already shaky plan grow any shakier. He gave him an apologetic nod, then brushed Luci’s forearm with his hand as he followed them out of the room.

“It’s perfect, Luci,” he said, and Luci gave him a proud little smile that was so honest it was all he could do not to fling his arms around their shoulders. He looked back one last time, soaked up the chaos of Luci’s spirit, found something of the divine madness and beauty of every artist he had ever known and loved and lost throughout history.

“Just wait until you see the kitchen,” Luci called from up ahead, voice rising in pitch with excitement. “Don’t you know cheese fridges are all the rage, darlings?”

“Where are you hurrying off to?” Crowley murmured, laughing as Aziraphale broke into a power walk and tugged him along in his wake.

“Cheese fridge, Crowley,” the angel hissed back, smiling for the first time that evening. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

***

It was dark outside by the time either Crowley or Aziraphale came face to face with Raphael, given that Luci’s apartment tour had taken the best part of an hour and included everything from the ensuite bathroom (the centrepiece of which was a hulking claw-footed tub that looked as though it might spring to animated life at any given moment) to the second bedroom, which also doubled up as a star gazing retreat, thanks to the sweep of six skylights that ran above the stretch of ceiling directly above the bed.

It was, Aziraphale thought with a smile, quintessentially Raphael and Luci. Luxe from top to toe, there was so much of the couple on display in the decor that was so winningly self-aware it read as camp rather than gaudy, in the titles on the groaning bookshelves in the hallway library, even in the music that played at the perfect volume in every room, which was down to some technical wizardry Aziraphale couldn’t help but marvel at. Instead of the usual central London penthouse party muzak, the party’s playlist cycled through from jazz that purred of aching longing, to sixties swingand eighties new romanticism, settling on nineties grunge anthems that told tales of chronic apathy.

“Apologies, Hugo, I’m going to have to borrow this one.” Luci cut in between Raphael and a tall man with a soft, lined face, smiling pleasantly as they hooked a hand through Raphael’s arm and tugged him free from the conversation.

“It’s Chris. We’ve met a hundred times, Luci.” The man sighed in fond exasperation, as if it was a conversation they had had many times over throughout the years.

“Of course, Hugo. You know me, memory like a sieve. It’s all the paint fumes. Straight to my head.” Luci laughed, giving the man a loose wave as they turned back to Raphael.

“Do you have to tease him?” Raphael asked, leaning down to Luci and nodding warmly at the angel and demon as he made a beeline for them. “His investment paid for that hideous bath you love so much.”

“It’s a beautiful bath,” Luci cried, clutching their chest as if Raphael had insulted their very soul.

Raphael laughed, leaning closer and wrapping an arm around Luci’s waist as they walked, fingers pressing against their skin through the thin fabric of their dress. “Perhaps it’s time we usher everybody home so we can take a midnight dip.”

By the time they reached Aziraphale and Crowley both Raphael and Luci were chuckling over an unheard joke, heads bent closer to each other. Raphael picked two glasses of champagne off of a nearby side table and deposited them in his guests’ hands. “Can’t leave you two without a drink, can we? Thank you for coming, darlings.” He took a step back, throwing his arms wide as he spoke, something of an emperor proudly marking out his kingdom. “The perfect retirement spot, somewhere we can grow older and wiser and even more inspired together, what do you think?”

“You’re retiring?” Aziraphale asked, eyebrows raising in genuine shock. He wondered a split second later if it was the appropriate reaction, if it was what Zira might have said, but then the wicked smile on Raphael’s face confirmed the element of surprise was exactly what he had been going for. “Is that…is that why we’re all here?”

“Well,” Raphael said with a laugh, looking up at the grand chandelier that hung above his head, “if I’m honest we did want to show this place off a bit too.”

“What he means is that he wanted to invite his professional rivals and show them how very successful and happy we are.” Luci leaned in, forehead pressed to Raphael’s cheek as they closed their eyes and lost themselves to a smile of pure bliss.

They seemed younger, Crowley realised, almost giddy with the joy of flinging the doors of their home open and inviting the outside world in, just for a glimpse at everything they had spent their lifetime building together. It was something special, something the demon had noticed a while ago, the way they were at once two fiercely independent spirits and a seamless unit. There was no compromising of passions; they both had the space to grow and evolve and make mistakes and fall back against each other in the times where they needed that unwavering support, and that was why, the demon understood, they were such a fearsome team. They were two complete souls who chose to be together to enrich each other’s lives, to deepen their experience of love and lust for life, not a fragment of a soul that could never feel whole until it found its missing piece.

The demon looked down at the floor, smiling to himself as he remembered something Raphael had told him once upon a time, something he had never allowed himself to forget: _Love should be a conditional thing; hold that thought inside yourself always. There is a danger to unconditional devotion, remember that._

***

“Hello trouble,” Aziraphale quipped, sneaking up behind Lily and popping over her shoulder. He’d heard Mick use the phrase a few times previously and it had tickled him every time. He’d been waiting for the perfect time to try it out and had declared that evening the perfect opportunity. The angel had spotted Lily and Luci slouching cooly by the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lounge and chattering over matching inky blue cocktails, then Luci had disappeared to replenish their drinks and Aziraphale had taken his chance. The last time he’d attempted to match Lily for witty banter it hadn’t ended quite as planned, but he was sure that evening would be a far more successful affair.

Lily looked around at him, jumping back a little as she took in his familiar proximity. There was a low _dunk_ against the glass as her shoulder bumped against it in her effort to take a step back, and she fixed Aziraphale with a strange, challenging look. “Hi.”

She turned away then, fishing her phone out of her jeans pocket and busying herself with tapping out a message that seemed of the utmost importance, given the focused look on her face.

 _Strange_ , Aziraphale thought, _must have been a stressful day at work_. “How are you today, Lily? The shop hasn’t been too all-consuming, has it? If you need a break you only have to…”

“How do you know where I work?” she snapped, shrugging her jacket back onto her shoulders and looking past Aziraphale in search of Luci.

Aziraphale took a half step back, realised with an unpleasant jolt that she looked a little uncomfortable, almost afraid of him. When he spoke again he dropped his voice, rounded out the corners of his words. “My dear girl, are you okay?”

“Er, yeah. Fine, thanks. Oh.” She stopped then, pretending to wave and widening her eyes at nobody in particular. “I’ve just seen someone, I need to go and…”

“Lily,” Aziraphale said softly, realisation dawning on him like a cold, wet blanket had been slung around his shoulders. “Lily, it’s me. Zira.”

At the sound of his voice, soft and concerned, Lily shook her head a little, the fingers of one hand finding her temple and giving it a little rub. When she looked up, her dark eyes were full of friendly recognition. She looked down accusingly at her drink, as if it was somehow to blame for her temporary lapse of memory. “Hi, Zira, hi. Sorry, I… Luci makes these strong. What were we talking about?”

“Tattoos.” The word tripped off of his tongue without a second thought, which was a principle Aziraphale found incredibly strange, given his propensity to run every sentence through his mind before he spoke it. It had become an unconscious practice after six thousand years, seemingly undone in a matter of seconds. It was, he realised, the first time he had ever felt anything of Zira dancing below the surface of his own awareness. _Interesting. Is he sensing the time is almost nigh?_

“Is that so?” Lily laughed, rocking back on one heel and looking Aziraphale up and down. “What’ll it be, mister? A sleeve dedicated to your favourite authors none of us are smart enough to have heard of?”

Aziraphale looked around for inspiration, feeling rather taken with the idea as it hit him. “I think perhaps a nice…croissant.”

A sharply arched eyebrow raised just a tad, as if Lily’s initial shock gave way almost immediately. “A croissant.”

“Well, I don’t know. Do I look like the sort of fellow who regularly gets…inked up?”

Lily’s face crumpled, as if something had just caused her physical pain. “Please, Zira, please never say _inked up_ again.”

“Oh, is this one finally biting the bullet and giving himself up as a canvas?” Luci swept back into the conversation, holding two fresh highball glasses brimming with the same dark liquid the previous two had been filled with. They offered one to Lily. “Refill?”

“None for me, thanks.” Lily shook her head, laughing as she eyed the drink suspiciously. “Near enough forgot where I was halfway through our conversation, didn’t I, Zira? I’ll find you two later, I’m off to rescue Mick before Raphael convinces him to buy a smoking jacket. Another one.”

“I must say, I didn’t think my conversation was that dry.” Aziraphale smiled, nodding gratefully as Luci passed him Lily’s rejected drink. “Go on then, tempter.”

Luci threw their head back, belly-laughing so loudly the nearby conversations stopped to see what all the frivolity was about. “Why does everybody always say that about me?”

***

“It’s dark,” Aziraphale said, as if there weren’t a thousand and one other topics of conversation he could have delved into. It was the first time he had been alone with Luci since they’d spent the day together at the clay shooting range but this time he was focused.

 _It’s simple, angel,_ Crowley had said while they were getting ready earlier that evening, _we get them alone and check, once and for all, that human is all they are. Keep it simple, keep it easy, just…I don’t know, Aziraphale, just check somehow. We don't want to do this alone if we don't have to, not if there's help right here beside us. You take Luci, I’ll take Raphael._ Aziraphale had protested then, asking why _he_ had to be the one to try and wrangle Luci, but Crowley was having none of it. And so, the angel found himself drinking his third cocktail of the night, accompanied by Luci, out on the couple’s spacious roof terrace.

Luci laughed, a peal of genuine amusement as if Aziraphale had cracked a top tier joke. The angel smiled to himself, quietly pleased Luci had warmed to him so. He thought of Lucifer’s all-encompassing light as they had waltzed down heaven’s corridors, the way he would duck back if he saw them coming, hiding himself for reasons he hadn’t come to understand at the time. Now, though, he was on a _mission_ , as it were, a quest to find them, to bring them back into the light. Six thousand years it had taken him to find is confidence. Six thousand years and the unending love of a hell-cursed demon. That was what it all came back to, he thought with a smile: time and love.

Bringing Aziraphale out of his own thoughts, Luci looked up at the night sky as they spoke, a thousand worlds reflected in their eyes. “Funny, the way the sky can be so bright, so many colours, how quickly it all fades away into nothing when the sun disappears.”

“Yes.” The word tumbled from Aziraphale’s lips without the angel noticing. He looked at Luci, searching for any twinge of recognition in their face. “Everything feels a little bit…less.”

They looked at him then, as if they were searching his face for part of their own story. Then they hopped up onto the metal railing that ran around the edge of the terrace, nothing but their hands stabilising them from toppling over the edge completely. “It’s exciting though, isn’t it, the night? Permission. Darkness. I think it’s when the world truly becomes itself, when it doesn’t have to see every part of itself lit up for everybody else.”

“There is that,” Aziraphale conceded, raising his glass to clink against Luci’s. “I’m not sure we would…Crowley and I, I’m not all together sure we’d be here if it wasn’t for the safety of darkness.”

Luci looked up, legs swinging to and fro under the railing as they squinted up at the moon, half-hidden behind a cloud. “Sometimes I think the moon shines a light on far more than the sun ever could.”

 _Is it you?_ Aziraphale wondered, taking a step closer to the railings. He peeked over the edge, stared down at the black cabs and double-decker buses that crawled through the streets like matchboxes. The sensation made him feel too big, too much, so he followed Luci’s lead and looked up instead. Nothing but the moon, the stars, a streak of steel grey cloud. Strange, to find so much chaos in one direction and so much peace by simply looking the other way.

“Lucifer?” he asked, summoning up all the courage he had gathered, piece by piece, over six long millennia. He watched Luci’s face, searching for something, anything, some long-held recognition that pre-dated their origin in the new world. _You know me, you saw me, I was there when you fell. Please, if it’s you…_

Finally, they spoke, face creasing into a crescent moon smile as they stared up at the stars one more time. “Brilliant! I’ve been waiting for part two of this story ever since your party.”

Aziraphale felt a clench in the back of his throat, chastised himself for his foolish belief as he exhaled slowly. No. It wasn’t them. Of course it wasn’t. He’d been right earlier: just a stupid hope.

“You really should think about writing, you know. You took us all on quite a journey with that tale.” Luci jumped down from the railings, plucking Aziraphale’s empty glass out of his hand as they sashayed back inside to the party, their teasing voice rising even above the music. “Gather round, chaps, time for a couple of party games! Don’t roll your eyes at me, Hugo, you knew what you signed up for when you RSVPd.”

Outside on the terrace there was only one rebellious angel, looking out at a thousand lights across the city, each one another little life he held in his hands.

***

Crowley looked at the waves beating against the sand, crashing against the rocks and sending sweeping arcs of water cascading up above the bay. Black cliffs peered over the water. Watching. Waiting.

It had been a long time since he had seen it. The painting. It hit harder than he expected, left him swallowing an imagined tightness in his throat. It hung behind Raphael’s desk, as it always had. It was the same, every brush stroke, every slant of light, even in another world.

“A bit much, isn’t it?” Raphael’s voice sounded from behind the demon and he turned around to find the man smiling knowingly at him. No, not knowingly, that was wishful thinking. Pride. That was the expression on Raphael’s face. Pride at the home that lay around them, at the life he and Luci had built together? Perhaps.

“It’s…it’s lovely,” Crowley said, and the word _lovely_ had never sounded so thin, so nondescript. “The light. It’s wonderful.”

“Mmm.” Raphael nodded, sinking back into the perfectly aged chesterfield on the other side of the room and taking a slow, intentional sip of his drink.

He sounded distracted, as if the painting was a world away from his thoughts, but Crowley knew it was the right time to ask, in his own roundabout way, if perhaps he and Aziraphale weren’t alone in that world.

“Where did you, er, where did you get it?” Crowley asked, perching down next to Raphael and inclining his head towards the painting. “Did somebody…did Luci paint it for you?”

“Oh, my boy, no, no.” Glancing up at the painting as if it was a mass-produced poster tacked to the wall, Raphael shook his head and let out a light-hearted chuckle. “Not sure where we found it, if I’m honest. A market, maybe? France? It’s seen better days. Look closely, all those scratches, a couple of dents from the last time we moved. If I’m honest, the only reason I’ve kept it all these years is because nothing else fits in that cavernous frame. Hey, why don’t you take it? It’s about time somebody actually looked at the old thing.”

Crowley knew then, if not from his words then by the way Raphael barely looked at the painting before offering it up without a second thought. There it was. The man who sat beside him was that, just a man. A good man, but a man nonetheless. No hidden celestial stowaway, no secrets. He was the Archangel Raphael reimagined, Aziraphale’s approximation of the man Raphael might have become if he had been born into a lifetime of love and the freedom to laugh and shout and clamour until everybody in the room was looking at him. There was no more searching for allies in that world, the demon knew, accepted that maybe he had been wrong, maybe he and Aziraphale really were alone out there at the end of the world.

He stirred then, realised Raphael was waiting for a reply. “Oh, thanks. I don’t think…haven’t quite got the wall space for it, mate.”

Faint strains of a drum beat seeped in from under the office door, shot through with reedy voices and laughter from the party. Otherwise, there was silence in the office as Crowley and Raphael settled into a moment of companionable calm.

It was nice, Crowley thought, to sit by Raphael’s side again. Just the two of them, quiet in each other’s company. It wasn’t the Raphael who had shaped him in his youth, who had taught him how to create, how to love, how to draw inspiration from inside his own inquisitive heart. He took a sip of his drink, looked across at the man who sat next to him. No, not the same, but still good.

“Why now?” Crowley asked suddenly, the sound rippling out from the silence like the first raindrop on a still lake.

“Hmm?”

Crowley still wasn’t sure what Raphael _did_ , and his opulent, worldly office decor hadn’t helped, but he knew whatever it was had been his life’s work, that stepping away from it couldn't have been an easy decision. “What made you decide to step back now, to retire? How did you know when the time was right?”

Raphael smiled, crossed one ankle over the other and shifted to face in Crowley’s direction. “It wasn't about timing, little one. I’m tired. I don’t want to work until it takes too much of me, until it’s all I know how to do.”

“Look at everything you had to do for this life.” Crowley nodded, gesturing around the room at everything that sat on a shelf, stood proudly on the desk. A lifetime of accomplishments, of work, rendered in material acquisitions. “It’s no wonder you’re tired.”

“Time to confess why we really gathered everybody here.” Raphael laughed in agreement, squeezing Crowley’s shoulder as he stood up to leave. He paused in the doorway, bathed in light from the corridor, and looked back at the demon with a wink. “The real wonder is how I kept this quiet until tonight. I’ve never been known for my discretion.”

Then he was gone, and Crowley was left alone with nothing but his thoughts, overlooked by a painting that cut deeper than a rectangle of canvas and oil paint had any right to.

***

“…You’ve all had quite enough of my time, if I’m honest. It’s our time now.” Raphael grinned down at the group of friends who were gathered around the bottom of the staircase. He stood on the third step, glass of champagne in one hand, the other snaked around Luci’s waist. “But don’t you worry, we have no intention of fading into the background. After all, what’s the point of having all the time in the world if you don’t cause a little havoc?”

Peals of laughter came from the crowd as smiles perched on the faces of those at the party. It was obvious now, in hindsight, that this announcement had been in the works for some time. Colleagues thought of off-hand comments that had been made over the months, the way Raphael’s demeanour had begun to morph from frenetic to calm, as if he was already a footstep removed from the cult of work. They were happy for the two of them and everybody in attendance had the same sudden thought. _They deserve this. If anybody deserves this it’s Raphael and Luci. Good for them._

“Right, it would be a shame to let this music go to waste, wouldn’t it? Thank you, Lily, for the playlist.” Raphael raised his glass in Lily’s direction and Crowley found himself laughing at the unexpected flash of shyness that danced across her face. _Well, there’s a first time for everything_. “Thank you, all of you, for coming tonight and sharing this evening with us. Now, shall we dance?”

There was a rush of bodies surging forward to congratulate Luci and Raphael on their news, to wish them well and enquire what they might do next, what sort of havoc they intended to raise, precisely. There was the collective feeling of _no, they’ll have something up their sleeves, something they haven’t told us yet. A new collection? Their own gallery? A book, perhaps? Memoirs. Yes. Who among us wouldn’t clamour for a peek beneath the curtain, to read those stories of Paris and Berlin and London again and again until we know them by heart, so intimately they could be our own memories?_

An angel and a demon watched as two humans, two soul-shatteringly bright, fierce humans took each other’s hands and began to dance. There might have been sixty, no, seventy people in the room, watching their every move, but to Raphael and Luci there was only ever the other.

“Yours,” Raphael whispered, pressing a tender kiss to Luci’s forehead, smiling against their skin and wondering if he might be the luckiest man in the world.

“Yours,” Luci answered, their hand finding the curve of Raphael’s cheek, knowing that he was, at once, home and adventure in one wild soul.

Aziraphale watched them dancing, was hit by a strange, sad thought that he would be content if that was the last time he ever saw them, happy and free and utterly lost to each other. Perhaps the night hadn’t been a complete waste. Turning back to his own great love, he rested his head on Crowley’s shoulder as they moved to the music. “I love you, Crowley.”

Crowley leaned his cheek against the angel’s hair and closed his eyes, remembering the night a year ago when they shared what he had truly believed would be both their first and last dance together. And yet, there they were, dancing still.

“I love you too, angel. Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good afternoon y'all! I hope you're all doing well and enjoying the last days of summer. I love the back to school feeling of September and, as is customary, I've bought a brand new journal and two pairs of stomping boots for the upcoming blustery weather :D. Watch the UK have a heatwave now I've got all my jumpers out from storage 🙄.
> 
> We are SO close to the end of part three 😱. I've written chapters 36-37 so only two more to write! I'm really proud of still writing all the way through everything that's happened this year but I'm also very excited to have a brand new part coming soon. A fresh new part for the big ending - and I finally settled on the title today...Until I inevitably change my mind tomorrow, and again the day after, and the day after :D.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little look at Raphael and Luci's plans for the future - I don't think there are two other characters in this series who deserve a quiet retirement more than these two 😂. I'll be back next Wednesday where we see the celestial boys make some plans for returning to Earth...and then the countdown to the end begins!
> 
> A huge thank you and shoutout to lovely Viatta, who did it again with another incredible Ineffably Yours playlist that inspired me so much. The Rose and the Thorn is one of the songs she recommended and as soon as I heard it it reminded me of Raphael and Luci(fer) - I hadn't planned to include the final scene in this week's chapter until I heard the song, so thank youuu, Vi, as always <3.
> 
> Speak soon my dears <3
> 
> P.S. If you have any autumnal recipes in your arsenal please hit me up, I'm after all the cooking/baking inspiration!


	36. Interstellar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you mean?” Aziraphale asked warily, as if he already knew whatever Crowley said next was going to lead to a spike in Zira’s dreaded cortisol levels.

**June. The Rooftop, London.**

Crowley felt the warmth of Aziraphale’s presence behind him a second before he saw him, heard the creak of the rooftop door swinging closed a moment later. It was dark up there on the roof, high above the streetlights and shop fronts and glaring headlights. If it wasn’t for the steady stream of car horns and shouts from Friday night revellers, one wouldn’t have been remiss for supposing they were somewhere other than London entirely.

The roof wasn’t designed to be used as a star-gazing spot but that hadn’t stopped people clambering up there over the years, leaning back against the sloping tiles and resting their feet on the low jut of safety railings that ran around the perimeter of the building, though their few inches of support didn’t offer much in the way of safety.

Crowley felt a sudden displacement of air next to him, accompanied by an _oomph_ of effort as Aziraphale pulled himself up and settled back next to the demon. A tartan blanket was draped over the Crowley’s legs in the dark, followed by a smooth thermos pressed into his hand.

“You’re prepared.” Crowley clutched the thermos in his hand, felt the heat of it pulse against his skin and twisted the cap off. He look a long drink, smiled inwardly at the taste. It was delicious, even if it was a little too sweet for his liking.

Aziraphale took the flask from Crowley, drinking deeply and letting out a little _ahhh_ of satisfaction before he dabbed the corners of his lips with a handkerchief and propped the flask down by his side. “This might be the last time we come up here, we might as well do it properly.”

“I’ve always thought hot chocolate lends the end of the world the gravitas it deserves.”

“Cocoa gives _any_ situation a sense of gravitas, my dear,” Aziraphale snipped, faux-affronted that after millennia of trying, he still hadn’t quite won Crowley over to his devotion to the ultimate comfort drink. Perhaps if he took to adding a slug of whisky it might go down a little easier. He tucked the idea away for next time. It was reassuring, making promises for _next time_ as if such a thing was guaranteed.

Aziraphale felt Crowley’s fingers walk the length of his forearm from elbow to wrist and then slide between his, pressing into his skin as the demon gripped his hand in the darkness. The angel stared up into the night sky, tracked the path of a cloud as it inched its way in front of the moon. It was serene up there on the roof with only the sky above them. He knew Crowley felt freer that way, with nothing blocking him from the outside world. No walls, no barriers. Just the two of them and the stars.

“I wonder how far away we are,” Aziraphale mused, unaware he’d spoken the words aloud until he heard Crowley turn to look at him. “From heaven, from the others.”

“The others.” Crowley chuckled, letting the sound out along with a slow exhale. “Angel, I’m not sure there are any _others_ like you.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. Whatever was coming, he wasn’t entirely sure it was going to be complimentary. He searched Crowley’s face for a mischievous smile but found nothing but shining eyes, lips slightly parted in the darkness. Unable to resist, he leaned forward for a slow, aching kiss. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure there was ever another angel like you but especially not now. Not after what you’ve done.”

“What I _did_ I did because I love you, Crowley, and I do not for a second regret shaking off the _shackles_ of eternal solitude placed on me by that corrupt cesspool manifesting as divinity.” Ending his tirade with a punctuating sniff, Aziraphale gave Crowley a cool look of finality, as if the demon should consider the matter closed. Firmly.

The demon did not, in fact, consider the matter closed. He reached out to stroke Aziraphale’s hair, looking at him with soft devotion. “While ditching heaven to slum it with me was one of the more romantic highlights of my pitiful existence, I actually meant the part where you dreamed up and created a whole new world out of nothing. Even archangels have a blueprint, guidance from the Almighty. Nobody has ever done what you did, Aziraphale. That’s why there’s never been another angel like you. And the fact you’re not an utter wanker, that sets you apart a bit as well.”

“It must have. It must have been done before. I just…I just thought of what you told me about creation and it sort of…happened. I didn’t _do_ anything. I didn’t have any special knowledge, any… I don’t know, Crowley. It all happened so fast, all I knew is that I couldn’t let you go, I couldn’t let everything we had fought for for so long be for nothing.” The angel let out a frustrated sigh, knocked his head back lightly against the roof tiles. Once, twice, three times. “And now here were are, yet again, running out of time before we have to say goodbye. We should be better at goodbyes by now, shouldn’t we?”

“At least we say goodbye together this time. That’s progress. Maybe next time we’ll…”

“There isn’t going to _be_ a next time for goodbyes,” Aziraphale insisted, tightening his grip on Crowley’s hand, as if to anchor them together even more tightly. “No, after this time we are taking a leaf out of Raphael and Luci’s book and retiring. It’s just like Raphael said, everybody else has had _enough_ of our time. All the time that’s left is going to be ours and nobody else’s.”

Crowley watched as Aziraphale’s jaw clenched, the moonlight illuminating the tension the ran from his ear to his chin. He’d always been one for gritting his teeth when he needed a physical outlet for his frustration. It was a quieter way to be angry, he supposed.

“What do you want to do?” Crowley asked, dropping his voice in an effort to soothe the angel out of frustration. “With all that time we’re going to have, I mean.”

“Build a life with you, my love.” Aziraphale whispered the words, throwing Crowley back to the night before their life on Earth had ended, when they truly believed they were counting down the hours until the last moment of all. “A quiet life, that’s what we always said, wasn’t it? A house full of dogs, breakfast in bed every morning. You’re going to learn to make sushi, isn’t that what you said? We’ll walk to the sea every afternoon, breathe easy under a big, open sky. Just us, together. I want to be happy, Crowley, that’s all.”

_I want to be happy_. The most complicated desire of them all. And the simplest. It was all they had ever wanted, Crowley thought, to be happy and free together. He dropped his hand to Aziraphale’s thigh, squeezed it tightly. “That sounds like a wonderful way to spend eternity.”

Aziraphale sighed, gaze cast up at the stars as if they were somehow to blame for the predicament they found themselves in. “I only created this place for us to be somewhere safe and look, it’s about to put us in the most dangerous position we’ve ever been in.”

“We’ll be okay, angel. We always are. We keep each other safe, I think. Love is a kind of safety net, I’ve always thought.”

The angel looked away from the stars, focused his attention on the demon by his side. _You have always had the most beautiful soul of them all, haven’t you? It’s a tragedy that I’m the only who ever got to see you as you are, as you truly are. My soulmate. My saviour._ “Let’s save each other one more time.”

“Add it to the collection, shall we?” Crowley chuckled, reached down for the thermos and took another swig of hot chocolate. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, the sweet stuff. “Now, place your bets, where’s fate going to spit us out when we go back? The park?”

“The park.” Aziraphale agreed with a little nod of practicality. “It’s where everything ended, it makes sense it’s where it will begin again. Picking up where we left off, as it were. So, the park, we know that, at least. Just the small matter of two missing corporations to overcome.”

“Ah!” Crowley clapped his hands together, as if he’d been waiting for Aziraphale to mention their next little hurdle. “Well, you know all about that, don’t you? What do you say to _temporarily_ borrowing a couple of corporations?”

“ _Borrowing_? Do you mean to say you’re suggesting we take over the bodies of two unsuspecting humans and put them in mortal danger while we figure out how to get to Raphael before Gabriel gets to us?”

Crowley hung his head, sighing in resignation. “Well, when you put it like that it doesn’t sound like such a great idea. What was your plan, anyway?”

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably next to him. “I’m afraid I had the same thought, my dear. It’s not ideal but what other choice do we have? It will only be for a short while. The park is always awfully busy. Those two gentlemen who like to rendezvous by the duck pond, I thought perhaps…”

Barking a laugh out into the cool midnight air, Crowley fixed Aziraphale with a look that was half accusatory, half admiring. “Oh, so you’ve even picked out your preferred targets, have you? Well, well, well.”

“If you’re like to climb down from your high horse, that would be wonderful. Any time, Crowley.” As the angel spoke, his fingers fanned out on each word for extra reinforcement, just in case the solemnity in his voice wasn’t quite cutting it. “We slip back quietly, unnoticed. We _borrow_ two corporations, make a beeline for the Love Nest, and then when we know it’s safe we’ll steal up into heaven and find Raphael.”

“That sounds…incredibly simple. Suspiciously simple.”

“I never said it was going to be simple. We don’t know what’s going to be waiting for us when we go back. Look at what’s happened here and that’s just…an echo of what’s been happening on Earth. The End Times, they’re not _good_ , Crowley. They’re messy. They’re a test. We could be walking back into chaos.”

Crowley hesitated for a moment, gathering up the courage to speak, knowing that when he did the suggestion would be impossible to go back on. He stuttered on the first word, unsure what would be worse: Aziraphale agreeing, or Aziraphale refusing and coming to regret it if the worst happened. “Should…should we split up, do you think? Go back separately, I mean.”

There was the sound of Aziraphale sucking in a breath beside him, a gasp of indignation. “Why in the _world_ would you suggest something like that?”

The demon bit his lip, his hand searching for Aziraphale’s in the dark. He needed to touch him, to remind himself that they were there, together, safe. “So there’s always somebody to take care of this place. In case one of us doesn’t make it back.”

Aziraphale’s fingers met his, gripping on as tightly as if something was trying to tear them apart where they stood. “No. Everything we do, we do together. Honestly, Crowley, that’s your worst idea so far.”

“At least something’s finally knocked _hurling Gabriel into the sun like a javelin_ off of the top spot. You know, maybe we could just go straight to the source.”

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale asked warily, as if he already knew whatever Crowley was going to say next would lead to a spike in Zira’s dreaded cortisol levels.

“You know,” Crowley said slowly, as if _going straight to the source_ was in any way an obvious statement. “Her. Finish Her off, end all this.”

“And end ourselves in the process?” Aziraphale cried. “I don’t think!”

“I’m just saying, it’s an option.” The demon smiled placidly, as if it had been worth a try.

Aziraphale looked around desperately, as if a bolt of fire might plummet down from the sky at any moment. “Well, don’t _just say_. She might be able to hear you.”

“Of course She can hear me. She already knew I was going to say this. All-knowing, it’s part of the whole deity thing. In fact, She’s the only entity who knows how this is going to end. Speaking of…” Crowley megaphoned his hands around his mouth and bellowed up into the sky. “Oi, Ma’am! Fancy giving us a helping hand? A sign? A good old-fashioned smiting? Anything at all?” He looked back at Aziraphale and shrugged, only mildly dejected. “Worth a try.”

_Everything we’ve done to protect Her world and She can’t even give us an answer. She would let us all die for it, caught in the cross-fire,_ Aziraphale thought, the bitterness in his mind catching him off guard. _She knows what is coming, She knows this is the end, and where is She? She condemned us to this, all of us. Our Almighty. Our mother._

It was folly to return to Earth, Aziraphale knew that. He knew that death might be waiting to welcome him back to the stars with open arms, that at any moment that great shrouded shadow might announce his time was up. Would he go willingly, he wondered, or would he fight death again to stay by Crowley’s side for just a while longer? The angel looked down at their hands, clasped between them, a half-smile on his face. Of course he would fight. He was tired of running, tired of hiding, but there was still some fight left. Enough for the next battle, he hoped, the very last one of all.

“Seven days,” the angel said, voice clearer and stronger than he felt inside. He’d rehearsed the words in his head but now, saying them aloud, it made them real. There was no going back. “Seven days, and then we’ll leave.”

“Angel?” Crowley spoke softly, head angled low to try and catch Aziraphale’s eye, to search his face for the determination he would find in the jut of the angel’s chin, the narrowing of his eyes.

Aziraphale turned, pulling him closer, his voice urgent and pleading. “Let’s do one last thing before we go. Let’s take a tour of us, of our story. Let’s remember where it all started, how far we’ve come, everything we have to fight for. And then we’ll go, together, and face everything we’ve been hiding from.”

“Our greatest hits.” Crowley smiled, nodding slowly. There was a finality to it that filled him with dread, as if they were embarking on a farewell tour of sorts, one last flick through the photo album before they laid it to rest. Aziraphale was right, what better way to remind them of everything they had to hold on for? Seven days. It wasn’t much time. Not when there were six thousand years of moments to choose from. How to begin narrowing down the key moments of that eternity of love and heartache and the ending belief that yes, finally, they would make it? “Where do we start?”

The angel opened his mouth to respond, snapped it closed as he spotted a streak of light out of the corner of his eye. A shooting star, skittering across the sky directly in front of them, leaving a trail of silver in its wake. It was beautiful, sudden, and gone in a second; a secret only meant for the two of them to see.

“ _No miracles, Crowley!_ ” he hissed, curling his fingers around the demon’s wrist to link them together. “What have you done?”

Next to him, Crowley looked up in wonder. “That wasn’t me. I told you She was listening. She knows how this ends, angel, I think She was reminding us we’re not alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How is it Wednesday again already? They come around faster and faster, I swear! I really hope you enjoyed this one, folks, only three more to go! Next Wednesday we'll see the celestial boys revisit some of their 'greatest hits' - out of interest, which locations would you put on the list? (Here's hoping mine and your choices marry up because I've already written the chapter 😂).
> 
> I hope you've all had a good week and all of the changes September brings haven't been too hectic for you. More than anything, of course, I hope your plates have been full of deliciousness. On the menu tonight I'm cooking mushroom, fennel (bonus points because it's fresh fennel from the garden?) and camembert pie with a butternut squash, feta and pine nut salad...and maybe chocolate orange muffins for dessert if I have time :D.
> 
> As always, your support means the world and brightens up my week every time. Lots of love, my dear friends <3


	37. All of Your Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The smugness adds extra flavour.”

**June. The Bandstand, London.**

“I still don’t know how this place made the list.”

Crowley leaned over the iron railings, stared down at the worn stone steps that ran around the eight sides of the bandstand. It had been quiet in the park when they’d arrived just after dawn, thin fingers of light escaping from behind puffs of cloud. Ornamental shadows from the railings painted the path in front of the bandstand, and Crowley had given a little grimace of discomfort as they’d approached. While they’d met at the bandstand untold times over the years, it being one of their most frequently used rendezvous spots, there was one day in particular that had become synonymous with the octagonal shelter in Crowley’s mind. It hadn’t been a good day.

“Of course it made the list.” Aziraphale bustled over, arms folded against Crowley’s shoulder blades as he rested his chin against the nape of the demon’s neck. “This was the first place you sent me during our treasure hunt, do you remember?”

Crowley smiled, despite himself. He remembered. He remembered how eagerly he had arranged the bouquet, propping it against one of the pillars and tucking the hand-written card inside. He remembered the lightness in his step as he’d walked away, knowing he had just set something special in motion. Mostly, he remembered how tightly he’d gripped his phone until, finally, it had buzzed to life, delivering the blurred selfie Aziraphale had gleefully snapped of himself and the flowers.

He was relieved, after everything, that the flowers were the first thing Aziraphale thought of when he saw the bandstand. In his mind, when he saw it he thought of asking Aziraphale to jump ship and run away with him to the stars, of rejection, of walking away when it seemed like all hope was lost.

“This is where my heart broke in two, angel,” he murmured, tracing the path of a leaf as it skittered across the steps below them. The wind caught it a moment later, whipping it up into the sky where it rose, higher and higher, and then disappeared from view.

Aziraphale felt the rounding of the demon’s shoulders, the way he curled in on himself as if the posture was a sort of armour. He knew he had hurt Crowley that day, had seen it in that split-second of pain on his face before his expression had hardened. He thought about it often, the hurt he had caused Crowley over the years in his desperation to keep their secret from being discovered. A necessary evil, that was how he had always described it, but evil, nonetheless.

“I know.” Aziraphale sighed, reaching for the demon’s shoulder and gently easing it back until he turned around, leaning back against the railings. The angel caught the shine in his eyes, wondered if the sting of a lifetime of rejection would ever truly heal. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have come.”

Crowley shook his head, lips curved into the whisper of a smile as he slid sunglasses over his eyes and curled a hand around Aziraphale’s wrist. When he spoke his voice was soft, warm. “No, I’m glad we did. It’s part of us. I was so…I was so confused that day. I thought it was a sign, Armageddon, that we should finally _do_ it, what we’d been dancing around for so long. What better time to go after true love than at the end of the world? That’s all I kept thinking: _if not now, then when?_ It would be the end, as far as I was concerned, if I didn’t leave right then.”

“But you didn’t leave,” Aziraphale said, his mind ticking to connect the dots. “You stayed. I refused to leave with you, and you still stayed.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our promise.” Crowley raised an eyebrow, leaning down to nudge his forehead against Aziraphale’s.

The angel smiled, a little shyly. He hadn’t forgotten. A promise was a promise, even one made half a century previously. He placed a palm against the demon’s chest, spread his fingers wide and felt the precious beat, beat, beat of Crowley’s heart.

“You and I, at the end of everything.”

***

**Soho.**

“If we’ve learned anything,” Crowley mumbled, pausing to swallow a wad of croissant, “it’s that I’m diabolical at recognising fate rearing its head.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s entirely true. Why, you told me just a quarter of an hour ago we needed to pick up the pace or you had a feeling we’d miss out on fresh croissants, and you were right about that, weren’t you? Look at this, still warm.” Aziraphale held the pastry aloft as if it was a precious artefact, albeit an artefact with a crescent-shaped bite mark taken out of it. He took another bite, sighing happily with satisfaction. “Why does food always taste better if you manage to nab the last one in the shop?”

“The smugness adds extra flavour.”

“Well then, consider me one smug angel.” Aziraphale folded the last layers of flaky pastry into his mouth, groaning with pleasure as the rich buttery flavour left his tastebuds singing. As far as he was concerned, it was the breakfast of champions.

Breakfast complete, the two of them walked hand-in-hand through Soho’s criss-crossing streets, taking advantage of the warm summer morning before London roused its residents from their slumber and the city got far too busy for either Aziraphale or Crowley’s liking. They took a detour to the shop, stood outside its bolted doors for a moment and talked idly about what Zira’s grand reopening might look like. Crowley was sure another of Tracy’s astrological-themed evenings would be a hit, while Aziraphale thought perhaps an elegant wine reception might be a little more au fait with the bookseller’s tastes.

After the bookshop they found themselves wandering off course for a while, letting their feet carry them where they would, losing themselves to gazing up at the architecture of Soho’s buildings, something neither of them had taken the time to do in the old or the new world. Angels and demons, it seemed, were no more impervious than humans were to rushing through life at breakneck speed, never pausing for long enough to delight in the little wonders all around them.

“Look!” Aziraphale exclaimed, stopping in his tracks and pointing at the light-brick building that lay on the other side of the road. Blooms fell from the first floor window sills in huge, vibrant clusters, coming to rest just above the curved windows of the ground floor. Peonies and wisteria were wound together in delicate vines of flowers, purple and pink cascades of petals that gave the building an otherworldly, ethereal beauty. Their wandering had taken them through Soho to Mayfair, and there was something about the building that the angel found familiar in a hazy way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Have we been here Crowley? For dinner, you and I?”

Crowley laughed, reaching for the angel’s outstretched hand and lowering his arm before he garrotted an innocent passerby. “In a way, I guess we have. It wasn’t us, not really. Zira and Anthony, they came here that night when…”

“Oh, oh yes, I remember now.” Aziraphale nodded, remembered Zira’s excitement at spending the evening with Anthony, thinking it was something of a double date with Raphael and Luci; the first he had ever had. He had been so nervous but so sure that it was the beginning of something, though he had buried the thought as quickly as it had come to him. At times it had been almost too revealing, watching Zira live out his own fears, seeing the way the bookseller cocooned himself off from the outside world in a misguided attempt to keep himself safe. “I felt you, that night, as if it was the two of us sitting there, as if for a moment we might have taken their place.”

“Torture.” Crowley stared up at the building, eyes narrowed as if it was to blame for those long months spent trapped in Anthony’s mind, unable to do anything other than watch and hope and plead with him not to make the same mistakes he had. “I felt like I was a breath and a million miles away from you all at once.”

“Do you think they’ll ever understand?” Aziraphale asked, taking Crowley’s hand as they resumed strolling down the pavement, squinting into a mid-morning burst of potent sunlight.

“Anthony and Zira?” Crowley scoffed, eyebrows raising as he tried to fathom coming face to face with the human that shared a piece of his soul. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll take it in stride when we pay them a visit, don’t you think? Hi guys, it’s us, your blueprints. You, yes, _you_ have the dubious honour of being based on hell’s most incompetent, disliked, _leggy_ demon. And you, yes, _you_ have the dubious-er, pretty sure that’s a word, honour of being based on heaven’s most rebellious, headstrong, _dashing_ angel. Any questions?”

Aziraphale might have shot back a snippy retort if he hadn’t been too busy swelling with pride at Crowley describing him as, not only rebellious and headstrong, but _dashing_.

“No questions? Didn’t think so.” The demon grinned, stepping over a particularly rotund little dachshund as they crossed back into Soho, finally back on track for their penultimate destination of the day.

“Yes, actually. I’ve been thinking, Crowley, what do you think will happen to us when all of this has blown over? If it all goes to plan? What use would this world have for us? Zira and Anthony have found each other, Raphael and Luci have their forever, at last, what would be left for us to do?”

It was a thought that had been swirling distantly in his mind, a far off galaxy of thoughts that had orbited closer and closer as their departure date grew nearer. They’d taken to calling the day they’d pledged to return to Earth their _departure date_ , as if referring to it as a sort of travel excursion might lighten the thoughts of dread that were beginning to creep in as time ticked down on the metaphorical sand timer. Six days. That was all that was left.

Aziraphale had had a taste of redundancy after Armageddon failed and Crowley had insisted they lay low until the heat was off them. As it turned out, of course, they hadn’t once left the frying pan since that day and the heat only seemed to be increasing. Still, back then he’d thought an eternity of nothingness loomed before him and he’d hated every moment of it. He’d been created with one purpose in mind: to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, and what use was he if he had nobody to protect? His own creations had forged their own paths, and he was delighted to see it, but Aziraphale was a being who thrived on being wanted, no, _needed;_ what would become of him when there was nobody left who needed him?

“Well, the first thing we need to do is build the rest of the world. There’s, er, a certain degree missing, I’d wager. That’ll take us a few years, especially if you’re expecting me to work in your within your stringent guidelines for eateries. I was thinking, angel, that maybe we could branch out beyond a 50/50 split between crepes and sushi, what do you think?” As Crowley fell silent he bit the smile back from his lips, watching the whirlwind of expressions that flashed across Aziraphale’s face: understanding, inspiration, excitement…and then indignation as Crowley’s last comment sunk in.

Fears of redundancy set aside for the time being, Aziraphale shot Crowley a look of mock-superiority. Well, if he was honest, there wasn’t much _mock_ about it. As he’d come to grudgingly accept over the years, a principality with a sense of superiority was a very happy principality indeed. “I think, Crowley, that you’re being very dramatic. There’s a pizza place four streets away from Anthony’s flat.”

“Point taken. Now, what do you say to our second task being to send these two off on an extremely well-earned holiday?” Crowley gestured to their visages as he spoke, wondering idly where in the world Anthony would most want to visit. They deserved it, perhaps more than any human being had ever deserved a holiday, what with the corporation-lending and all that. Maybe Berlin, he could see Anthony there, or New Orleans, it had always been one of his favourite places on Earth. Or, come to think of it, maybe he and Aziraphale could dream up a new spot entirely. There was nothing to say they couldn’t add their own flair to the new world. Six thousand years of experience had been more than a little inspiring, after all.

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows, conceding Crowley’s point. “Yes, well, their travel opportunities are a little limited at the moment, I’ll admit that.”

***

Aziraphale looked down at his feet, imagined the shine of neon lights reflected in slick stone. He looked up again, sighing as he leaned his cheek against Crowley’s shoulder. The two of them were standing on the pavement outside a building that was now a phone shop but had been a rather nefarious bar sixty years previously. It looked like nothing, that strip of grey pavement outside a nondescript retail shopfront, but Aziraphale would never forget the moment he had stood there in the darkness, in the misty rain, and watched Crowley drive away from him.

“I broke your heart here too,” the angel said, looking up at the demon, wondering how he had kept his faith in them for all that time. It was a wonder. _Crowley_ was a wonder. He had always thought it and nothing that had transpired over the past six millennia had done anything to convince him otherwise.

“No, you didn’t, angel. I knew. I knew it was only a matter of time. Everything in this world is only a matter of time: the right time, the wrong time, not yet, soon, never, always. I knew how you felt that night. You’ve never been a very good liar, not with me. Besides, what is it you always say? Patience is a virtue.” Crowley tilted Aziraphale’s chin up with an index finger, kissing his lips so tenderly it sent Aziraphale hurtling back sixty years to the moment he had sat in the Bentley and wondered what it would be like to feel the demon’s lips against his. He had fought tooth and nail against every instinct that night, had barely been able to force out the sentence that had led to him standing on the pavement, regretting every word he had said from the moment they had fallen from his lips.

“You never went too fast for me, Crowley. You were everything I needed, always.” Aziraphale pressed one last kiss to the demon’s lips, stroking the length of his cheekbone, marvelling at how full circle the moment was. _How desperately I wanted to kiss you that night,_ he thought, leaning in for one more kiss, simply because he could, _and now here we are, my love. You were right, we were only ever a matter of time._

***

**Farringdon.**

“It’s like it never happened.”

Crowley craned his neck to stare up at the church, which stood proudly behind a trim of neat railings and pretty, blooming flowers, backlit by the sun as she began her descent. The two of them sat on a bench just outside of the church’s perimeter, leaving Crowley unsure if the tingling on his skin was down to his demonic soul or the memory of the burning sensation in the soles of his feet on the night he had rescued Aziraphale’s books, and Aziraphale himself from the drudgery of laborious paperwork.

“Look,” Aziraphale murmured, tapping Crowley’s thigh and nodding down to a brass plaque that had been inlaid in the middle of the bench.

_St Anthony’s Church._

_Destroyed in 1941 during the Blitz, rebuilt in 1946._

_The altar withstood the blast but golden eagle lectern was never recovered. A replica now stands in its place._

**_For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity._ **

As Aziraphale read the words aloud, Crowley’s cheeks visibly reddened at the reference to the missing eagle lectern. The angel noted his blush and pursed his lips in judgement, something he’d been waiting to do for quite some time.

“You and your souvenirs.”

“You and _your_ souvenirs,” Crowley shot back, wishing he had a better repertoire of comebacks to choose from.

“Mine fade, yours get memorialised for generations to come,” Aziraphale said prissily, gesturing towards the inscription. A moment later his tone shifted as he sighed, running his thumb along the faded plaque. “All those lives lost in the Blitz. All those lives I couldn’t save.”

“There was nothing you could have done, angel.”

“I wonder how many people you saved that night. It would have fallen on houses, wouldn’t it? It was reckless, Crowley, what you did.” Aziraphale’s voice was grave, as if he’d only just realised the impact Crowley’s actions could have had. “What if hell had got wind of it? You dispatching evil, saving good people in the process. I’m not sure they’d have approved.”

“I don’t know, angel, I’m not sure even hell cared for nazis. Besides, sometimes you have to step in and think about the consequences later.” Crowley shrugged, bracing his foot against the ground until his shoe relieved that ghost of an itch on his skin. “I know we’re not supposed to intervene but, well, it was two birds with one stone that night, wasn’t it? Three nazis with one last minute bomb redirection, more like, and I wasn’t going to let your books be destroyed, was I? You can’t always let fate do what it will.”

“No,” Aziraphale mused, soft words snatched away by the breeze. “No, I suppose you can’t.”

The angel fell into silent contemplation, then decided he’d had quite enough of that and drummed his fingers on his knees before reaching into his bag and pulling out a tartan flask. He unscrewed the lid and passed it to Crowley, nodding for the demon to take a sip.

“Where did you get that?” Crowley laughed, holding it up and turning it one way and then the other, trying to work out if it was the very same flask Aziraphale had passed him with shaking hands all those years ago, trusting him not to spill a drop.

“I found it in the back of Anthony’s kitchen cupboard,” Aziraphale explained, remembering the flush of emotion he’d felt when he’d spotted the pattern in amongst the spare plates and pans. It had felt warmly familiar to see it there amongst Anthony’s possession, just one more link from their own story. “I thought it was somewhat more stylish than that ghastly silver one we had the other day.”

The demon took a drink and passed it back to Aziraphale, smiling at the angel as if he had never loved him more. “Your subconscious dedication to tartan knows no bounds, angel, do you know that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I hope you've all had a lovely week and that you enjoyed today's chapter :D. Only two more to go until we're onto part four and the end of days are upon us!
> 
> There's going to be a small break between parts three and four so I can publish a couple of short stories and a new chapter of the Raphael story (which has been a longgg time coming) - one of the stories covers the promise Crowley and Aziraphale made to each other half a century ago, which had a little mention in this chapter :).
> 
> I hope you're all well and have some fun weekend plans on the horizon - let me know what you've been up to! <3


	38. Young and Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To Crowley, Aziraphale had always embodied the best of heaven, of love, of the four principles Raphael had told him that day in the forest: patience, rebellion, hope, kindness.

**Hell.**

Hungry.

They tell me the final days are coming.

The end of everything.

I am so hungry.

They give me their scraps when He is finished.

Glass eyes and broken wings.

I drink every last drop of torment up, up, up before they go down to what lies beneath the darkness.

I have grown restless.

They promised me the Fallen One and their many eyes.

I watch them.

I have always watched them. In the gloaming, in the night. As they fall slowly, slowly.

I follow them. I am on their back. I am always with them.

They are weak.

Foolish.

Scared.

There is no one to want them.

They are ready for the darkness.

They are closer now.

They are mine.

It is almost time.

The war is coming.

I will feast on it.

Bloodshed. Fear. Cowardice. Those above. Those below. The slow and the fearful. The brazen. The damned.

I will feed and eat and drink and send them down down down below into the darkness and the shadows and then there will be nothing left.

I will grow fat with it and I will sleep until I am called again.

Another realm. Another war. There is always another war.

The final days are coming.

***

**June. Kew Gardens, Richmond.**

**Four Days Remain.**

“You gave me something when you sent me here.”

Crowley’s chin rested gently against the cup of his hand as he gazed out at the trees. The two of them were standing in the centre of the treetop walkway, wooden planks strung through with thick knots of rope, the structure moving gently as one as the wind whipped around them. It was lower, and smaller, and Crowley knew there should have been twenty other types of tree in the forest but it didn’t matter much. It was the thought that counted.

“Mmm, a number of rather lovely bouquets if I remember correctly.”

“No. No, not that.” Crowley shook his head lightly, then remembered the pretty spray of flowers he had clutched in one hand, collected on the botanical treasure hunt Aziraphale had sent him on a year previously, as he had looked out at everything he had created and remembered his life before the darkness. “Well, that too, they were lovely. Those delphiniums? Beautiful. You never see delphiniums in bouquets. Criminal, that. Anyway, no, you gave me something else. Something more than flowers.”

“ _More_ than flowers?” Aziraphale clutched his chest in mock-disbelief that such a thing existed.

“Stop it.” The demon laughed, playfully kicking the toe of his boot against Aziraphale’s brogues. “You gave me something of myself back. My old self. Who I was before…everything else.”

“You’re still that,” Aziraphale said quietly, seriously, as he tucked his hand around Crowley’s waist and held him closer. “I saw it on the night you made the garden, I saw it on stage in heaven, I saw it the very first time we met, my love. I told you once before and I’ve told you a thousand times since: there is no darkness in you, Crowley. You are good all the way through, to your very core and your sweet heart.”

Crowley smiled, felt a knot in his throat as he swallowed a flurry of protestations. _No, don’t say ‘I’m not’, don’t say ‘I’m bad, I’m evil, look at all the terrible things I’ve done’. Just let yourself be here with him in this moment. You haven’t done evil, not in this world. Here you are good. All the way through._

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” the demon said finally, because a change of subject was easier than accepting praise. His index finger pointed out towards the mismatched trees, stubby little things, young and pale, bending to the wind as if they might kiss the ground if the breeze blew any harder. Crowley waited for the angel’s reaction, poised for another affectionate jab, ready to muse whether the giant lily pads minded that they were soggy little moss balls in this world, or whether the huge glass Conservatory missed its life before it was shrunk into nothing more than a garden greenhouse.

Aziraphale grinned proudly, then caught the glint in Crowley’s eyes and tutted, pursing his lips in disproval. “Well, it was a lot to remember in half a second, Crowley. Besides, I thought you might want to make it your first creation project. Treat our world to some of that green-fingered demonic flair of yours, bring this place back to its former glory.”

“Oh.” The word escaped Crowley’s lips like a sigh and he fell into a world of redwoods stretching their branches up to the sky, of oaks with hard little acorns, Japanese pagodas with their green drip of leaves tumbling down towards the earth. Yes, he thought to himself with a firm little nod, this would be the first place he visited when it was time to create again. Something of a playground. He smiled. Somewhere he could breathe and bloom and grow until there were so many trees and flowers and buds that the humans would think themselves explorers, as if they’d stumbled across the place for the very first time.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale whispered, resting his forehead gently against Crowley’s cheek. He spoke slowly, as if he regretted each word as soon as it left his mind. “What will it be like? The final battle, the great war?”

The demon gave a little shrug of ambiguity, eyes fixed on the trees as if they were something of a comfort blanket. “Give it four days, we might find out firsthand. Truthfully? I don’t know, angel. We heard things in hell, Beelzebub likes to discuss it at every opportunity. They were ready when we stopped them the first time, they won’t take any chances this time. They’ll take the Earth with them at the end. Another failed experiment, I suppose. Those left alive will be…redistributed, as it were.”

“And the humans?” Aziraphale wondered aloud. He had heard discussions in heaven, of course, about the glory that awaited humanity in the wake of hell’s defeat at the hands Gabriel’s divine army: everlasting life, the Almighty’s benevolent blessings in perpetuity.

“If heaven win? More of that eternal paradise bollocks. If hell win? Eternal damnation, I would imagine. The big, demonic, carmine king of hell himself is always on the lookout for more bootlickers.”

“Charming.” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow, shuddering at the recollection of the fleeting moment he had spent in Satan’s presence. At the time there had been only adrenaline coursing through his veins, the determination to protect Adam Young, to stop Armageddon in its tracks, to live through that day if only to discover what the rest of his days might hold with Crowley by his side.

Crowley chuckled, raised Aziraphale’s hand to his lips. “You asked. Not that it matters. We’ll be a world away from all that by then. Literally. The biggest thing we’ll have to worry about is what colour we want to paint the sky each night.”

“Oh _don’t_ start,” Aziraphale groaned, a rumble of frustration rolling out from his throat. “We are _not_ cursing this poor planet with a green sky, Crowley.”

“Only on special occasions!” the demon cried, eyes puppy dog wide as he stared pleadingly at Aziraphale. “They’ll love it! They’ll never have seen anything like it. They’ll gaze upon your glorious viridescent sky and fall to their knees, proclaiming you a…”

“I don’t want any of that. These last few years have been very taxing. When all of this is done I just want to…sit quietly and eat biscuits.”

A moment later Crowley grinned, stooping to blow a stray leaf off of the railing and watching as spiralled down towards the earth. “I know what I’m going to do. First, I’m going to meet Mick at the allotment so I can show him where he’s been going wrong with his tomatoes all this time. Then I’ll swing by the flat and surprise Anthony, watch him lose it trying to figure out what’s going on. And then…I mean, I always hoped they’d think about getting another dog when things are settled, maybe a second opinion would…”

“Oh…Crowley.” Aziraphale paused, swallowing as he reached out for Crowley’s hand, giving him a gentle squeeze as he smiled sadly at the demon. He felt a rush of love, a protective thrum in his chest as he watched the glimmer in Crowley’s eyes begin to dwindle. “Mick, the others... I think, perhaps, tomorrow might be a farewell of sorts. They’re not our friends, it’s not our life to come back to. It’s Zira and Anthony’s.”

The angel watched confusion flash across Crowley’s face before his excited expression fell. He felt a pang in his heart as the demon looked down, nodding in resignation as he scuffed one foot against the wooden planks they stood on. “Mmm. Got a bit carried away for a minute. It’s not going to be the same afterwards. I know that. Nothing will, I suppose.”

***

It had been many years since Crowley had set foot in heaven as an angel. Many thousands of years. He had lost count of the precise figure, was sure he could pin it down to the exact number if he put his mind to it. It didn’t much matter whether he was a few years out, the outcome was still the same: it had been so long that he wasn’t even sure he could remember heaven the way it was in the beginning, back when it had almost deserved the name.

Before the Almighty moved onto her next work, before heaven was left in Gabriel’s _capable_ hands, it had been a different place entirely. Beams of light illuminated the towering pillars until they were gold and beautiful. Clouds were tinged pink with the fading light of sunset, so close you could feel them beneath your fingertips if you reached up high enough. The stars were right there, a stone’s throw away, glittering and precious, a reminder to all angels of creation that they could create incredible things if they looked inside their hearts.

Heaven was never the idyllic paradise it looked on the outside, not even then. Even when the night sky glinted above, around, below, there were the same whispers, the same rules, the same punishments that there always had been, the same rumbles of control and piety masked as goodness. Still, when Crowley had briefly been granted entry to heaven for those harrowing hours of the R&R programme, he had found heaven’s icy detachment mirrored in its surroundings for the first time. Claustrophobic corridors that led to featureless doors, cavernous swathes of space in empty halls, ceilings that shut out the sun instead of letting the warmth of it in. Gabriel’s heaven was a grey space, a soulless thing that was nothing of the heaven Crowley had always believed in.

And yet, although heaven felt very far away indeed, Aziraphale had always managed to bring something of heaven to him in a thousand ways in a thousand hidden moments, all the myriad ways he had silently, safely told the demon _I love you._ The shift of his body against the demon’s in the night: _I feel safe when I’m close to you._ The graze of fingertips touching his in those early days when even a glance felt like a sordid secret: _I will find a way for us to be together._ The quiet understanding when it was too much, too deep, and one of them had to step away: _it’s only temporary my love, that’s all any of this is, after all._ The feeling of lips against his neck, fingers twining in his hair: _I love you, I love you, I love you, I will move heaven and Earth for you._

To Crowley, Aziraphale had always embodied the best of heaven, of love, of the four principles Raphael had told him that day in the forest: patience, rebellion, hope, kindness. There had been patience, so much of it, in the way he had let Crowley say the things he needed to say, the things that gnawed at him from the inside until they left his lips and hung in the space between them. Rebellion, of course, in their secret meetings, their millennia long love affair conducted over dinners and darkness, in the way he chose love above all else, despite the cost, despite the risks. There was hope in everything the angel did, in his defence of what was good, what was right. It took great hope to believe in a better world, even more to protect it. Kindness had always been imprinted on Aziraphale’s soul, right from the moment he was created: a principality incarnate. There was kindness in the way he had quietly helped Crowley rebuild himself over the centuries, in the way he fed the ducks with a soft smile on his face, in the way he would take away pain wherever he found it, even if the cost was that pain finding its way into his own self. Yes, Crowley firmly believed, there was no being that knew love more deeply and intimately than Aziraphale.

It was one of the heaven’s biggest missteps, the demon had always thought, that they had squandered Aziraphale’s gift for embodying everything heaven stood for. No. Not a misstep. A mistake. A travesty. A crime. Would the world, the world they had grown from a tiny kernel of life, be ripping apart at the seams, one breath away from that final death rattle, if Aziraphale, not Gabriel, had been the blueprint for the divinity? No, Crowley thought, the world would be a much kinder place. Heaven itself would be a much kinder place, come to that.

The demon curled his hands around the smooth metal railing as he felt a hard flare of resentment rise up within him. He felt the cool steel beneath his palms, used it to anchor himself back to the present, reminded himself that he was standing on the treetop walkway in Kew Gardens, well, the _new_ Kew Gardens, _the New-Kew Gardens,_ he thought with a thin smile. He wasn’t in heaven. He wasn’t standing toe to toe with Gabriel. He was with Aziraphale, he was safe, he was home. Where else but by Aziraphale’s side could he feel safe to unleash that streak of anger, that swirling vortex of rage aimed squarely at heaven’s gates? He had lost one home because of heaven’s wrath, then he lost another, and now he was on the precipice of losing another, yet again.

It built, his anger, and it built and it built until it felt as though he could barely contain it, as if it was something too big for one soul to withstand. It built until he could barely see straight, until he could think of nothing else, until it followed him with every step he took, until he saw it in every shadow, until his own reflection held fire in its eyes, as if the mirror image in every puddle beneath his feet showed him as he was without a mask. It had always been a cycle, his anger, building until he couldn’t take it any more and he would do one of two things: he would burst and destroy everything within reach, or he would curl up and sleep until it boiled away, leaving only scorch marks in its wake.

_Why do I sleep? Why do I dream the decades away? I don’t want to be awake. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want this to be the world. I don’t want to be on the run. I don’t want to hide and steal away and believe that they are who gets to win. I don’t want to be here, in this endless limbo. I don’t want to be up there or down there, I just want to be. I don’t want to be the wrong one, the broken one, the ugly, guilty, worthless one when they are the good ones. They broke me, they cursed me, they created me. If I’m the evil one it’s because they made me this way. Why do they get to go on creating and living as if they are the Almighty’s messengers? Why do they carry Her message and all I can do is hide and run and try to survive? Why do I have no choice but to make the best of it or wither away under the weight of my own guilt?_

_I am alone. I am so desperately, truly alone. There is nobody else like me. There is nobody else who has walked my path, who can tell my story, who has seen and suffered and lived through what my heart has seen. There is nobody else who has lost what I have lost, who lives with the regret that exists in me like a splinter. Sharp. Tender. Bruised. My heart is tender, my soul is bruised, my guilt a sharp scratch that digs and digs until I let it in. There is nobody like me. There is nobody like him. Together we are something, even if neither of us truly knows each other’s path. There is nobody to share our history, to know the things we’ve seen, to make the choices we’ve made. The rebel and the fallen, has it come to this? Are we the last of heaven’s angels?_

***

While Crowley’s solitude was a haunting spectre in his life, Aziraphale had always found the notion of isolation comforting. Loneliness had become synonymous with safety; the fewer souls he had to put his trust in, the less he needed to worry about betrayal. If it was just Crowley and himself, two unique souls amongst the billions, he could almost pretend his existence was a secure one.

Returning to Earth, assessing the damage heaven and hell’s war had wrought on it, picking up the remaining tatters and ferrying them safely back to his new world, that was something other than secure entirely. What would be waiting for them when they returned? Worse, _who_ would be waiting for them? Would it be Gabriel, shark-eyed and filled with fantasies of vengeance, or would it be Raphael with their quiet, steadfast melancholy, or would it be someone else entirely? Some _thing_ else entirely? Aziraphale thought of the dark shadow Crowley had spoken about, that demon-eater who wanted only to spread hate and fear and desperation. Would that blight be all that was waiting for them, coiled and ready for one final meal? Or would the Earth still stand, as determined and plucky as it always had been?

There were too many unknowns, that was the problem. Aziraphale thrived when he was in control, when he knew what was out there, when he understood the stakes. Possibilities and maybes and frantic situations that called for quick thinking, that was Crowley’s area of expertise. Survival, that had always fallen to Crowley. The demon would argue that the opposite was true, that it was Aziraphale who had saved them time and time again but that day he had created the new world? That was a fluke, a one off, the angel knew it. _If only we knew more,_ he thought to himself as he let out a slow sigh of frustration, _if only there was a way to know what would be waiting for us, if only we had more time._

_And what afterwards? What when the old world ends, when the Earth dies, what happens then? Will Crowley still be bound to hell or will his soul, his sweet soul, finally be free? If hell loses the final battle, what will become of him? Will he be another fallen soldier, cursed for eternity? If heaven wins, what becomes of me? Am I still owned by heaven’s gates or am I already free? There is nobody to ask. Nobody but you, Mother. Please, please send me a sign, send me anything, just so I know. Will we be together afterwards, after the end? If we…when we return to this world will we be free or will I be bound to a new heaven and him to a new hell? Please, Mother, will this world in between be the only place we can be together?_

_You know his soul, you may be the only other one who knows him the way I do. You know he is good, you know he is kind and patient and every other thing you taught us to be. He never lost it, not even hell could take that from him. They tortured him, they tempted him, they did every wicked thing they knew how to do to try and break him. He endured all of that, Mother, everything that you let happen to those angels who only wanted something better for us, for all of us, for your heaven. You never came to them. You never stopped it. You let them fall and they did, they fell, all of them, except for one._

_Do you still love him? Do you still love all of your children, or only the ones who would fight to the death for you, the ones who would punish in your name, who would curse their siblings to an eternity in hell for daring to speak of a better world? Would you punish me for what I did when I made this place? Will you? Is it waiting for me? Is it lurking around the corner when I least expect it? Are you what’s waiting for me at the end of it all?_

_I remember when you were everything to me, Mother, when every thought in my mind, every word that left my lips was only to serve you._

_Afraid. Cowardly. Meek. That is what your heaven thinks of me, Mother. There is no comfort to be found in that place. My comfort has always been here, surrounded by humanity, surrounded by life and love in a place where you can try and make mistakes without the fear it will be the last thing you ever do in the light. They called me soft. They called me weak. Maybe that’s what you think of me too after all is said and done._

_There’s one thing they’ve forgotten, though, one thing they’ve always chosen to ignore. You didn’t create me to be afraid or weak or fragile, did you, Mother? You created a warrior. I’ve been fighting since the day I took my first breath and I will fight until I take my last. I will fight for them, I will fight for him, I will fight for myself until there is no fight left in me. A blinkered view has always been the most dangerous of all. Tunnel-vision, that’s always been their downfall. One way of things, the right way, their way, and nothing else._

_But there is more than one way to be a warrior._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The penultimate chapter! 😱
> 
> Next week is the very last chapter of Part III and then, after a short break, we'll be kicking things up a notch in Part IV, where the end of days will truly be upon us. It's been a long wait 😂. Thank you, as always, for sticking around; I'm so excited to share the rest of this story with you.
> 
> I hope you've all had a lovely week and your first couple of days of autumn have been a delight! I kicked off the new season with my first porridge of this half of the year, wheyyyy. What do you add to your porridge? Blueberries and cinnamon honey for me!
> 
> For my fellow UK-based folks, big hugs after the conflama of this week's announcements. 
> 
> Stay safe, everyone <3


	39. Where Worlds Collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yes, well, organisation is next to godliness, after all.”

**June. Crowley’s Flat, London.**

**Three days remain.**

Crowley woke as the sun rose high enough in the sky to disturb the blanket of darkness that had enveloped the bedroom. He felt, rather than saw, the sunlight, and held his eyes closed to prolong the last moments of peaceful rest before the day began. Their schedule had been somewhat jam-packed for the last four days and, while Crowley was sure that day would be no exception, plenty to do before the end of the world and all that, he knew there could be no harm in eking out a few minutes of calm.

At the sound of a small snuffle of comfort from the other side of the bed, the demon opened his eyes and lay still as he let himself grow accustomed to the sun. The light danced in front of his eyes, flecks of dust caught sparkling in the rays that stole their way in through the gap where one or the other of them hadn’t fully tugged the curtains closed. He turned his head a fraction to the right, took in the spotless sky, as unendingly blue as a child’s painting, lovely in its simplicity. In all the moments of mundanity Crowley had grown to love, watching the sun’s early morning waltz across the sky was the most beautiful of all.

There was the beauty of the natural world, of course, but, more than that, there was an unparalleled joy in taking a few quiet moments at the beginning of the day to lay beside the love of his life, listen to his breathing, feel his weight next to him on the mattress, to marvel at another morning of bliss.

Aziraphale lay next to him, eyelids twitching in a dream, hair ruffled against the pillow. He looked soft, kind, the perfect image of an angel, as if he could ever resemble anything else. Crowley had visited the world’s greatest galleries, gazed upon the works of the masters, had even watched a few of them be created from nothing but dreams and brushstrokes. He had seen untold artistic interpretations of divinity but they were wrong, all of them. Heaven couldn’t be captured in oil, couldn’t be rendered on canvas. It could never hang, affected and breathless, on a wall in a building to be gawped at for eternity. No, heaven was curled up underneath warm sheets, soft-cheeked and pink-lipped, infinitely gentler and endlessly more powerful than those who still claimed to stand in heaven’s name, at once the muse of all those artists but, at the same time, innately unknowable, something too beautiful to be captured by even the greatest painters the world had ever known.

Warm light caught in the angel’s hair, transforming his curls from white to gold, leaving Crowley unable to stop himself reaching out to run his fingers through their lengths. He felt the angel’s forehead beneath his palm, heard a throaty rumble as Aziraphale cleared his throat and shifted sleepily onto his side, close enough to Crowley that their thighs kissed beneath the sheets. The demon smiled, wondered idly how it was possible for a cursed soul to feel such overwhelming love for the very thing that might be the end of him, and then he dipped his head to press a tender kiss against the angel’s cheek.

“Mmm.” A sound that wasn’t anything other than a sleepy mumble of acknowledgement found its way out of Aziraphale’s mouth and Crowley chuckled, shucking an arm around the angel’s shoulders. Aziraphale snuggled in, forehead pressed to Crowley’s neck, and they lay like that, chest to chest, soft breaths the only sound in the sun-filled room that felt, for a moment, like the most hallowed place in the world.

It was some time later when Crowley stirred for the second time, unaware that he had fallen back asleep but resigned to it as he tracked the sun in the sky and found her peeping back at him from a ten o’clock position. The sunrise had been and gone but he had been lucky enough to catch the best of it. Now it was mid-morning and, while there was a solid argument to stay tangled up together in bed all day, Crowley knew their great pre-departure to-do list wasn’t going to be ticked off by sleeping away their remaining days.

“Angel,” he whispered, the soft pad of his index finger drawing a scribble against the underside of Aziraphale’s wrist. “It’s time to get up.”

“No alarm,” Aziraphale mumbled, voice heavy with sleep and the remnants of a vision that was still scattered across his subconscious, abandoned puzzle pieces in his mind. There had been a hallway, filled with nothing but echoes, and the feeling of immense loss. The angel blinked twice, let the light bring him back to the present, and he shook away the last slipstream of his dream.

Crowley smiled into his hair, giving him a little squeeze. “I switched them off last night, thought we should treat ourselves to a little lay in after all our rushing around.”

“What?” Aziraphale froze in his arms, eyes widening far more speedily than he had intended. “Crowley, we’ll be behind our schedule!”

“Our doomsday schedule will be fine, angel, I promise. An extra couple of hours in bed isn’t going to waylay the end of days. Besides, we were perfectly on time for the last two armageddons, I’m sure we’re due a late entry.”

Aziraphale eyed him, unsure, before softening into a smile that had the faintest traces of guilt at its edges. “It was lovely to wake up naturally instead of being shocked awake by that blasted hydration alarm.”

As if he’d just been reminded of something that was of utmost importance, Crowley held up a finger. “Ah, speaking of… Cuppa?”

“Oh, you wily old devil, you always know how to sweet-talk me, don’t you? Tea would be lovely, and then what’s on the agenda for today?” Aziraphale wriggled higher up the bed until he was propped up by the headboard, legs splayed out in front of him and slashes of sunlight striping his chest.

“Well…” Crowley trailed off, hopping out of bed and making for the kitchen. He paused in the doorway, looking back for the angel’s approval. “I thought we could have breakfast in bed, it _is_ a breakfast in bed kind of day, isn’t it? Then a stroll to the park to pay our feathered friends a visit, then how about a late lunch of, er, well, it’ll have to be crepes or sushi, I suppose, before we meet our nearest and dearest humans for a farewell round at the… What is that godawful place called again?”

“The Red Lion, don’t remind me.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes, mind flicking back to the soulless gastropub that now stood in place of the recently departed Devil’s Den.

“Sound like a good day?” Crowley asked, smiling as he heard Barnaby’s squeaking yawn from the next room. “Only three of them left in this world, after all.”

Aziraphale beamed, wondering if there was any day by Crowley’s side that could ever be less than wonderful. “My dear, it sounds like a dream.”

***

**St James’s Park.**

“Soppy git,” Crowley purred with love, gently nudging Aziraphale with his elbow as he nodded at the particularly round duck with a white fleck just above his beak. The duck quacked with excitement as a spray of oats landed a mere foot away from his presence and he swam excitedly over for an unexpected morning feast.

“What? Me?” Aziraphale asked, momentarily affronted as he looked from Crowley to the duck in confusion.

“Yes, you.” Crowley smiled, forehead pressed to the angel’s temple for a moment before he gestured back to the happy little duck. “You even brought your favourite ducks here with you. I’d recognise that fella anywhere. You always throw him an extra handful and think I haven’t noticed.”

“I do no such thing,” the angel protested, before dissolving into a smile of embarrassment at being caught out playing favourites. “But he really is the perfect example of the species. Look at how he glows.”

“He _glows_?” Crowley wrapped both hands around the railings, leaning back and grinning up at the sky. “I’m not sure that was in the species description. Do ducks glow, angel?”

Aziraphale was insistent. “He does. Look at him. He glows with happiness. All he needs is an oat and he’s jolly for the rest of the day.”

“I’m not sure he’d be quite such the pinnacle of joy if you threw him a single oat but I take your point.” He spoke again after a moment of silence had passed, his voice soft with warmth. “I love it about you, you know, you being a soppy git.”

“Well, this is your lucky week then, my dear. All this nostalgia brings out my soppy side, I’m sure.”

Crowley met Aziraphale’s eyes, looking away and smiling as he recalled a tear streaking down the angel’s soft cheek when they’d stood in front of the location that housed the Love Nest back on Earth. In Aziraphale’s new world it housed a very fetching two-storey crepe shop but they would have known the location anywhere. Aziraphale had reached for his hand and when Crowley had turned to him to remark that they might be able to see their old home again in a matter of days, he had found the angel smiling through his tears.

“Tadfield tomorrow?” the demon asked, though he already knew the answer. The two of them had drawn up a rather meticulous timeline of every visit they wanted to make before their journey back to Earth. Next on the agenda was Tadfield. While the time they had spent in the pretty village was small in stature, the impact it had had on their story loomed disproportionately large. It was where they had saved the world for the first time, where they had learned of the depth of each other’s devotion to humanity. A reminder, they hoped, to steel themselves for the future.

“And back in time for tea at the Ritz,” Aziraphale reminded him gently. “We can’t be late, Crowley. It’s not as if we can sneakily pull the clock back half an hour like we used to.”

That was the thing about being miraculous, it did mean time-keeping wasn’t quite the priority it was for mere mortals who couldn’t manipulate the very fabric of time to ensure a tea reservation wasn’t missed.

“You know, angel, I’m not sure we’ve ever been so organised.”

Aziraphale gave a little shrug, rummaging in the bag in his pocket for a final handful of oats to throw to the waiting ducks. “Yes, well, organisation is next to godliness, after all.”

Crowley looked across at the angel from beneath a furrowed brow. “Isn’t that cleanliness?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Crowley, we’re not all as pious as you.”

The two of them burst into simultaneous chuckles at that, giving the ducks a little wave as they turned to go. As they trod their way back to the main path Crowley caught one foot on the wooden edging that lined the grass, lurching forward and crashing onto the ground with a breathless _oomph_ as he landed.

“My dear, are you hurt?” Aziraphale dashed forward, swallowing a bubble of laughter as he reached for Crowley’s arm and helped him clamber to his feet.

“ _Shit_ ,” the demon hissed, stretching out one leg to glare glarefully down at the slash in the knee of his jeans that revealed an angry red scratch. He reached down with one hand and cupped it over his knee, eyes half-closed when Aziraphale slapped his hand away in horror.

“Crowley!” he cried, fingers gripping the demon’s wrist to hold it away from his skin. “What are you _thinking_ , for heaven’s sake?”

“Sorry,” Crowley muttered, shaking his head in disbelief at his own idiocy as he dabbed at the thin streak of blood with the cuff of his jumper. “Sorry. Instinct.”

“We don’t get to have instincts, not here.” Aziraphale words came out harsher than he intended. He sighed, softening as he reached out to rub Crowley’s shoulder. “It’s just a few more days, my love, then you can perform all the miracles in the world. Are you okay?”

Crowley nodded, shaking his leg as he straightened up and taking a couple of test steps. “Just a graze. Nothing worth getting caught over.”

As they strode through the park, hand in hand, en route to a final trip to the bookshop to make sure everything was just so in readiness for Zira’s return in a few days, Crowley gave a little wince of pain when he was sure Aziraphale wasn’t looking. Though he was loathe to admit it, his knee was far more painful than a little graze had any right to be. He tried to ignore the sting, realising for the first time how low his tolerance for pain was. He wasn’t used to it, if he was honest. Not physical pain, at least. He was so used to banishing it with a quick miracle, healing any injury that befell him without a second thought.

 _What would I do_ , the demon wondered, _if it had been worse, if it had been Aziraphale, not me? If I only had a second to react would I step in or would I let fate do what it will to stay hidden here in secret? Three days, that’s all, we just have to stay safe for three more days._ He took a step closer to Aziraphale and reached for his hand. _Make sure you’re extra careful, you idiot. Especially on stairs. It doesn’t matter whether you look cool or not, hold onto the bloody bannister for three more days. You’re not going to get caught by Gabriel because you broke your neck trying to jog down the stairs like some sort of maverick._

***

**The Red Lion.**

It was strange, Aziraphale mused to himself as he sipped his gin, how things could feel at once so familiar and so alien. He was sitting thigh to thigh with Crowley, a drink cradled in one hand, as they chatted and laughed with Mick and the others, as they had done tens of times before. It was a slice of normality they had both wanted to soak up before their departure; one last night drinking and gossiping with the friends who had never truly got to know them. The real them. For all its familiarity, though, there were dents in the facade, a hundred little ways that rendered that evening _not quite right_.

For starters, they were sitting in the Red Lion (which would sweep the board in a prize-giving for London’s Most Generic and Soulless Establishment) instead of the Devil’s Den, which meant their ears were currently being assaulted by the blandest background music Aziraphale had had the misfortune of experiencing, instead of the rage-filled roar of death metal that he had grown surprisingly fond of over the last twelve months. There was talk of work and family and Sammy’s most recent disastrous date, as there always was, but there was no chat about Lucifer and the Guys, no good-natured argument about their upcoming set list. It was as if the band had never existed at all, not after the new world had begun to fold in on itself, as if every new crease erased another pocket of memories.

Still, it was what it was, and it was a great comfort to spend a few more hours in the company of Anthony’s friends. While Aziraphale was content to take a back seat, to listen to their chatter and let the inside jokes and raucous laughter wrap around him like the softest winter blanket, Crowley was leaning forward to drive the conversation, to slip in every pun he could, to whip his friends up into hysterical laughter one more time. He had loved it, the angel could see, having friends who saw him as something other than a demon. They had only ever seen him as Anthony, their friend, their Little Brother.

 _We’ll see you again_ , Aziraphale thought, _our sweet friends. It won’t be like this, I don’t think, but I promise we will see you again. You won’t notice us leave, I’m sure of it. Us today, Zira and Anthony in our place next week. Perhaps you’ll notice a shift, something in them we couldn’t quite capture, but not enough of a change for you to think about for any length of time. We’ll miss you, both of us, we’ll miss you dearly. You gave us an anchor in this world, a family to belong to. That’s what I’ll take away from you all, that’s the gift you gave me. Trust. Is there any gift more valuable? We’ll need it, Crowley and I, to survive what will be waiting for us on Earth. If we make it through, if we make it back here…well, not that you’ll ever understand, not that I’ll ever be able to tell you, but you might have played the biggest part in saving the world out of all of us. Our sweet friends, thank you for giving us a family, however briefly._

“If you’re _quite_ finished,” Sammy paused to glower in Lily’s direction, “I’m going to head home before suffering the indignity of another round of Sammy’s Dating Diaries.”

“But we’ve been subscribed from day one,” Lily protested, grabbing Sammy’s sleeve and all but forcing him back into his seat. “Please, Sam, your terrible love life is the cornerstone of our friendship. It fuels me, Sammy. I need it. I physically can’t make it through the day if I don’t think about you and…”

“Arghhh.” Sammy let out a growl of frustration and held his head in his hands. “Can we have one bloody drink without mentioning the guy from Southwark?”

“Let’s find out,” Dan quipped, heading for the bar, wallet in hand, before Sammy could change his mind. “Lily, if I get you a double does that grant Sammy a reprieve?”

“A brief one,” she agreed, fluttering her eyelashes at Sammy.

True to her word, though it appeared to take every ounce of effort her human corporation contained, Lily did make it through the group’s final half an hour together without mentioning the most legendary of Sammy’s dating fails.

 _I don’t want to go_. The thought popped into Aziraphale’s head as the six of them struggled to their feet and stretched legs that had only been used for brief dashes to the bar. He could have sat on that uncomfortable bench for the rest of the night, happily letting the hum of chatter soothe him as he enjoyed one last drink, and then another, and another, with his friends. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye, he realised, but then again, would he ever be? They’d built a comfortable life for themselves, he and Crowley, beginning their days by pretending to be disapproving of Barnaby clambering up onto the bed for an early morning cuddle, spending their evenings curled up on the sofa in Anthony’s sweet little flat. They had friends, they had a home, they had a life together that wasn’t fraught with fear at being caught together. It had been there, that fear, in the background, of course, but the last few weeks had been some of the most relaxed of Aziraphale’s entire existence. Comfort was a hard thing to walk away from, the angel had begun to realise. Three more days and then goodbye. Goodbye for now, he had to remind himself, that was all it was. _We’ll see you soon, it won’t be too long, it’s only goodbye for now._

“See you next week, my favourite bookseller.” Lily leaned against Aziraphale’s shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his neck, turning her head to plant a kiss on his cheek. She laughed, wiping away the perfect print of fuchsia lipstick, and Aziraphale felt something clench deep in his chest.

“Absolutely, my dear girl.” The angel pulled her back for one last hug, closing his eyes and memorising the way she flung her arms around him with joyful abandon, the sound of Sammy’s gruff affection as he swung out from the kebab shop doorway and asked if she wanted garlic mayo or not. As he bade Dan farewell he looked down at their hands mid-handshake, tried to capture the feel of Dan’s big palm near enough enveloping his own. The angel watched them go, then turned back to Mick. _Not yet_ , he thought desperately, _just a few more minutes. It’s not enough. How can this be goodbye? It needs to be something…more, something bigger. How can you not sense this goodbye isn’t like the others?_ “Can we walk you to your station, Mick?”

Catching onto his train of thought without missing a beat, Crowley nodded enthusiastically and slipped his arm through the crook in Mick’s elbow, patting him gently on the forearm as if he was escorting a sweet elderly lady across the road. “Yeah, we’ll come with you, old timer, don’t want to leave you to fend for yourself on the mean city streets, do we?”

“So kind, my guardian angels.” Mick laughed as Aziraphale mimicked Crowley’s action on his other side and the three of them tramped down the street arm in arm.

As Crowley and Mick descended into a serious debate about whether or not Mick had sewn enough fennel that season, Aziraphale marvelled once again at the complementary differences between the two of them. While he retreated into himself, content to fall to introspection and passiveness in his final moments before everything would change, Crowley only knew how to take affirmative action, to grab onto those final moments and push them forward, to create the memories he knew would sustain him through whatever came next. Active and passive. Yin yang. Balance. The way it always had been.

Aziraphale had been quiet that night. Quieter than usual, Crowley mused. He knew why, had known not to try and encourage the angel to speak up, to join the way he usually would. It had always been in Aziraphale’s nature to fall to quiet contemplation in the days before things were bound for change. In the days when they had only been able to spend time together under the guise of work, their final meal together would always be the polar opposite to their first one: when they reconnected after years apart it was nigh-on impossible to get a word in amongst Aziraphale’s relentless chatter, while their last moments together would invariably consist of the angel watching him quietly, falling more and more into himself as their moments together ticked away. It was the same that night as they spent their last hours with their friends. He would have spent the time committing every inside joke, every anecdote to memory, Crowley knew that. It was what would sustain him in the lonely days (weeks? Months?) to come, when they slipped back into fighting for the world with nobody but the other for company. It had taken the angel some time to open up, to realise that perhaps he could learn to trust, that it didn’t have to be solely the two of them for eternity, but now that he had, Crowley knew how hard it would be for Aziraphale to walk away.

It was a suspicious deviation from their usual route home, walking Mick to the tube station but Crowley was only too happy for a few more moments in his company. It would be one of his happiest memories, something he knew he would always cherish, getting to know the man who had gone from an acquaintance in the old world to nothing less than a father figure in the new world. He had missed it, having somebody to look up to, a set of values to emulate. Until Mick, he hadn’t realised how much.

They veered off of the main road then, cutting through a square that would lead them almost directly to the tube station on its other side. It was a lovely place during the day, grass verges bordered by pretty displays of violas and pansies, bobbing their heads in the breeze as a thousand hurried commuters brushed past them without even noticing they were there. Under the thin light of the moon it was a different story, all of that beauty hidden under a great swathe of night. It was there, though, of course, under the darkness.

“Not that I mind the company but you really didn’t need to-” Mick came to an abrupt halt mid-sentence, his step faltering as a cry rose up from the darkness.

From ten feet in front of them, maybe less, came a scream of fear followed by the heavy back and forth of footsteps against the slippery path.

“Hey!” Mick called out, taking a step closer and tugging Aziraphale and Crowley in his wake as he stooped forward to take in two shadowy figures in the distance.

“Help me!” Another scream, followed by a plea for help. A woman’s voice, frantic and afraid. It wasn’t clear whether she had seen the three of them or was merely calling out into the darkness in desperation, but then she lurched forward into the throw of illumination from a streetlight and everything seemed to happen in both a second and an eternity.

They were shadows silhouetted in the light, a tall imposing figure whose face was hidden under a hooded jacket, and a smaller figure who was gripping fiercely onto the handbag the man was grabbing for. They tugged the bag back and forth for a moment as Aziraphale and Crowley stared dumbly at the scene in front of them.

Then the man pushed her to the ground and suddenly it wasn’t up to Crowley and Aziraphale any more as Mick dropped both their arms in a heartbeat and charged towards the man, grabbing him by the thick fabric of his hood and yanking him back. He was shouting something but his words were lost under the confusion of noise, from the woman’s screaming to the man hollering something back. A threat? A warning? Neither angel or demon could make out anything from the shadows in front of them. There was a to and fro, the sound of the handbag coming free from the man’s grip and colliding with the ground, another scream from the woman and then there was nothing but a flash of silver in the moonlight and a frozen tableau of Mick hunching forward with a low moan of surprise.

The man ran, footsteps fading into nothing beneath the sound of Mick’s laboured breathing and their own haste to reach him. Crowley knew as he reached Mick’s side there were only moments left. The knife was buried in his ribs, the inch of blade that Mick had tried to pull free caught the light and Crowley heard himself sob fruitlessly.

“We’re here,” Aziraphale whispered, and Mick sagged against Crowley’s hip, resting against them both as blood bubbled from his mouth with the effort of trying to speak. He grabbed for Crowley’s hand, confusion in his fading eyes as his lips opened and closed uselessly.

_If I only had a second to react would I step in or would I let fate do what it will?_

The thought flashed back into Crowley’s mind but, in the end, all of the debates that had rolled over and over in his mind didn’t matter at all. There was no thought of what to do, no decision to make. There were no thoughts at all, as it turned out. There was only instinct, and love, as he placed his hand over Aziraphale’s, which was already pressed around the bloody knife in Mick’s chest and, together, they tugged that pain, that danger free.

And then there was a great shift in the earth and they were gone, leaving only a dog walker and a bookseller shouldering Mick’s weight between them in the square, blinking in confusion against the backdrop of screaming and sirens.

**********

*********

********

*******

******

*****

****

***

**

*

**

***

****

*****

******

*******

********

*********

**********

**Heaven.**

Aziraphale woke up face-down in heaven, exhausted and aching. His chest pounded as he sucked in air and opened his eyes to find his own fearful reflection mirrored back in the pristine marble floor. He fought to catch his breath, held out a trembling hand, saw it distort in the light. _So I’m back. But why…why here? We…this isn’t what we planned._ Memories rushed back to him then, fractured and dizzy: _shadows, shouting, a knife, then Mick's blood on my hands, the beat of his heart slowing as I held him._

A door creaked open behind him and then the angel was bathed in shadow as determined footsteps hurried closer.

Too fast. It was all happening too fast. He pressed his palms to the floor and tried to haul himself away, his feet sliding against the marble, leaving him immobile and desperate.

_No. No, please. Not like this._

He squeezed his eyes closed, knowing it was too late to run, and then he felt a warm palm against his shoulder and turned to find himself looking into the kindest, most welcome face he had ever seen.

“Thank heavens it was you,” he breathed a sigh of relief, placing his hand on top of Raphael’s.

The archangel’s face was grave. “You shouldn’t have come back, Aziraphale.”

“We didn’t have a choice.”

Aziraphale looked up at Raphael and reached out for Crowley’s hand, finding only air beside him. Something darkened in his chest as he looked around to find the halls of heaven deserted. When he spoke again, his voice high and hopeless, there was only the sound of his own frantic echo in reply.

“Crowley?”

**< Part IV Coming Soon >**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This is long, apologies, but I had a personal revelation to share and we all know brevity is not my strong suit :D)
> 
> Well then! Part Three is over and Part Four is on the horizon, delving into a rather pertinent question…if he isn’t with Aziraphale and Raphael, where the hell is Crowley?!
> 
> In case you wanted to listen to the Part III playlist now it’s complete, you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cg2M5HKvnoTPYStsMT0c6
> 
> Oh, and shoutout to Viatta the music maven for recommending ‘I Love You More Than You Will Ever Know’, I couldn’t not include it.
> 
> If anybody wants a little sneak peek of Part IV a few weeks early I've started the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4BTpd6UhHNJpQzRliXZlZD
> 
> I’m so incredibly grateful to every single one of you who has read this far and stuck with me the whole way through the first three parts of Ineffably Yours. It’s been the most transformative experience of my life, sharing this story week by week, and so much of that is down to you all so thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> ** Personal revelations klaxon **
> 
> As you might have noticed I’m pretty big on anonymity but I’d like to get personal for a moment. My life now is near enough unrecognisable from what it was when I started writing Ineffably Yours last year and over the last fifteen months I’ve made some big, scary, wonderful changes in the pursuit of carving out the life I knew I truly wanted but had been too afraid to go after.
> 
> I left a relationship that wasn’t good for me, I walked away from the house I owned, I spent four months during lockdown quarantining in a house I’d never set foot in before but has become a second home, I came out (first to myself, then to my friends and family, then to everybody else), I stumbled across the love of my life completely and utterly by chance, in the comment section of Ineffably Yours, if you can believe it.
> 
> Writing this little continuation of Good Omens changed my life, as silly as that might sound. If I let my imagination run away with itself it sometimes feels like I wrote the sort of love I always dreamed of into existence. A lot of things about this fanfiction journey were unexpected (the fact anyone is even reading these words is mind-blowing to me if I’m honest) but I think writing a story about soulmates and meeting my own as a direct consequence will never stop amazing me. Thank heavens I was on a Smiths binge when I wrote Part One so I got the idea for chapter fourteen because that was where it all started even if it we didn’t realise quite what that first comment in August would grow into 😭.
> 
> All of this to say, if things have seemed a little rocky in part three it’s because they were, for me, behind the scenes but I’m ending this part of the story so unbelievably happy and myself that I don’t want to stay quite so anonymous here. If anyone does ever want to chat off of AO3 I’m on Twitter and Instagram at @carlybennett (Twitter) and @writingfromthetub (Instagram) - my accounts are private but if you let me know here that you’ve requested me I’ll accept right away :).
> 
> Thank you for bearing with me while I’ve found my feet with my new life. It’s been quite the journey and the fact you’ve all supported me (without even realising it) is the most wonderful thing.
> 
> Now, outpouring of personal breakthroughs done, you will not believe how excited I am to write Part IV. All of my favourite ideas are in this upcoming part and there are a couple of chapters in particular I’m gagging to get started on. I really hope you’ll want to join me to find out how this story ends.
> 
> Before it starts, though, I’m taking some time to publish some short stories that tie in with this final instalment, so here’s my publication schedule for the next few weeks (if you want to be emailed when each of these is published you can always subscribe to my author page to get an alert when I publish something new):
> 
> Weds Oct 7th: If the World Was Ending (a new short story)  
> Weds Oct 14th: The Quiet Rebellion of Raphael Morningstar: Chapter Five (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20401738/)  
> Weds Oct 21st: The Book of Love (a new short story)  
> Weds Oct 28th: < I’m taking a week off to finish off work on chapter one of Part IV >  
> Weds Nov 4th: Part IV (The Song in the Silence) begins!
> 
> Well, I think that’s quite enough wittering on from me but please know that you all helped shepherd me through the most turbulent time of my life and I will never be able to thank you enough for that. I'll see you all next week with a brand new short story and, until then, thank you and I hope you have the best week.
> 
> All my love, always,
> 
> Carly <3


End file.
